Effects of Gait Inducing Assist for Patients with Parkinson’s Disease on Double Support Phase During Gait

Abstract

Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a common progressive neurodegenerative disease that affects a wide range of motor and non-motor symptoms. Freezing of gait (FOG) is such a motor symptom of PD that frequently results in falling, and almost half of PD patients suffer from FOG. In this study, we investigated the effectiveness of a robotic assistance system called UPS-PD, which was developed to suppress FOG. The double limb support phase (DLS) in a 10-m straight-line walking task, the gait time and step counts were measured in five PD subjects. In addition, the safety of the UPS-PD in a healthy person was investigated using OpenSim, and the DLS parameters in four healthy elderly subjects were evaluated. In the experiment with the PD patients, the DLS parameters of two subjects showed an improvement. Furthermore, the step length of one subject and the step length and walking speed of the other subject were improved. Moreover, there were no problems in terms of instability of gait in both the PD patients. The UPS-PD did not adversely affect the gait of healthy elderly subjects and the walking of a healthy subject model in the simulation. Therefore, the UPS-PD is considered to be a useful device for improving walking in PD patients.

A Study on Simultaneous Use of a Robotic Walker and a Pneumatic Walking Assist Device Designed for PD Patients

“…The study [11] reported that using a pedal-powered wheelchair COGY, PD patients can demonstrate regular and fast pedal movements without having FOG. Motivated by the results with COGY, Higuchi, et al previously developed a novel pneumatic walking assist device that gives self-paced and self-induced tactile and force feedback on the knee, and showed its efficacy on the double support phase during the gait of PD patients [12].…”