Objective Measurement of Walking Activity Using Wearable Technologies in People with Parkinson Disease: A Systematic Review Protocol.

Abstract

Introduction: Parkinson's disease (PD) is a complex neurodegenerative disease with motor and nonmotor symptoms with a multitude of disease variations and severity. Physical activity can improve the management of disease symptoms and increase patients' quality of life. Technological development of small wearable devices allows objective activity measurement such as daily step count.

Objective: To synthesize ongoing and past research on objective walking activity measurements using wearable devices in patients with PD.

Methods: PubMed, Cochrane, Web of Science, and PEDro database are systematically searched with no limitation on publication date. Keywords are relative to (1) the population, (2) the measurement tool, and (3) the measured outcomes. Only full-text English articles published in a peer-reviewed journal will be included. Participants do not have to undergo any type of intervention. Included studies must report an objective measurement of walking activity using wearable devices in PD patients. After an independent screening process done by 2 reviewers, data will be extracted from the articles according to the following 5 set of data: (1) the study metrics, (2) the population characteristics, (3) the measurement tools, (4) the experimental procedure, and (5) the reported outcomes.

Results: The results will contain inter alia summaries of the wearables' specifications, wearing location, and recommendations for feasible methodologies to capture daily walking activity.

Discussion: This review aims to synthesize the evidence of objective walking activity assessment with wearable devices in patients with PD. It will also provide recommendations with regard to device selection and suggest key points when monitoring walking activity in this specific population.