Agreement between the GAITRite^® System and the Wearable Sensor BTS G-Walk^® for measurement of gait parameters in healthy adults and Parkinson’s disease patients

Abstract

Background Nowadays, the most widely used types of wearable sensors in gait analysis are inertial sensors. The aim of the study was to assess the agreement between two different systems for measuring gait parameters (inertial sensor vs. electronic walkway) on healthy control subjects (HC) and patients with Parkinson’s disease (PD). Methods Forty healthy volunteers (26 men, 14 women, mean age 58.7 ± 7.7 years) participated in the study and 24 PD patients (19 men, five women, mean age 62.7 ± 9.8 years). Each participant walked across an electronic walkway, GAITRite, with embedded pressure sensors at their preferred walking speed. Concurrently a G-Walk sensor was attached with a semi-elastic belt to the L5 spinal segment of the subject. Walking speed, cadence, stride duration, stride length, stance, swing, single support and double support phase values were compared between both systems. Results The Passing-Bablock regression slope line manifested the values closest to 1.00 for cadence and stride duration (0.99 ≤ 1.00) in both groups. The slope of other parameters varied between 0.26 (double support duration in PD) and 1.74 (duration of single support for HC). The mean square error confirmed the best fit of the regression line for speed, stride duration and stride length. The y-intercepts showed higher systematic error in PD than HC for speed, stance, swing, and single support phases. Conclusions The final results of this study indicate that the G-Walk system can be used for evaluating the gait characteristics of the healthy subjects as well as the PD patients. However, the duration of the gait cycle phases should be used with caution due to the presence of a systematic error.

A Wearable Sensor System to Measure Step-Based Gait Parameters for Parkinson’s Disease Rehabilitation

“…The ICC (2,1) absolute agreement, a metric that is frequently reported in validation studies, was interpreted according to Fleiss, Levin & Paik criteria [ 43 ]. ICC values in the range from 0.83–0.98 suggest that the IMU system is a valid measurement system for both step length and step time parameters in all three groups [ 25 , 39 ].…”

“…All the data analysis for this validation study was performed using SPSS ® (version 24, IBM Corp., Armonk, NY, USA) and MATLAB software (version 2018a, Mathworks Inc., Natick, MA, USA). The agreement analysis (SDI-Step vs. GAITRite for PD & YA 1 ; SDI-Step vs. Optoelectronic system for YA 2 ) was carried out using the Passing–Bablok (PB) regression analysis, which is a statistical procedure that does not make assumptions about the distribution of data, provides confidence intervals for slope of regression line and intercept, and is insensitive to the distribution of errors and outliers [ 39 , 40 , 41 ]. Some of the previous literature utilized ICC (2,1) to compare gait parameters from IMU-based measurements and lab-based systems.…”

Clinical assessment of gait and functional mobility in Italian healthy and cognitively impaired older persons using wearable inertial sensors

“…Previous studies reported an overall good-to-excellent test–retest reliability for most parameters considered in the present study. This was true both for gait analysis [ 52 , 53 ] and TUG [ 54 , 55 ] performed with the same kind of setup, although some specific variables (in particular gait cycle phase duration and sit-to-stand time of TUG) should be interpreted with caution.…”

Simple Smartphone-Based Assessment of Gait Characteristics in Parkinson Disease: Validation Study

“…For example, Mancini and colleagues [8] showed that using six wearable motion sensors consisting of a gyroscope, accelerometer, and digital compass attached on the left and right wrists, chest, lumber, and left and right shanks can accurately measure the temporal and spatial metrics of gait in multiple cohorts. However, such assessments are typically limited to clinical and laboratory settings, and require in-person contact with trained study personnel to reliably administer protocols and standardized instructions [9,10]. Moreover, such instrumented techniques do not afford regular gait assessments in large numbers of people due to the testing constraints, especially for those who are unable to utilize personal or public transportation and for those who live far from clinical centers or hospitals.…”