Review of Active Extracorporeal Medical Devices to Counteract Freezing of Gait in Patients with Parkinson Disease

Abstract

Parkinson Disease (PD) primarily affects older adults. It is the second-most common neurodegenerative disease after Alzheimer’s disease. Currently, more than 10 million people suffer from PD, and this number is expected to grow, considering the increasing global longevity. Freezing of Gait (FoG) is a symptom present in approximately 80% of advanced-stage PD’s patients. FoG episodes alter the continuity of gait, and may be the cause of falls that can lead to injuries and even death. The recent advances in the development of hardware and software systems for the monitoring, stimulus, or rehabilitation of patients with FoG has been of great interest to researchers because detection and minimization of the duration of FoG events is an important factor in improving the quality of life. This article presents a review of the research on non-invasive medical devices for FoG, focusing on the acquisition, processing, and stimulation approaches used.

A Novel Physical Mobility Task to Assess Freezers in Parkinson’s Disease

“…A golden standard for the detection and assessment of the FOG phenomenon is currently unavailable [3,5,6,17]. The importance of this work is due to the crucial need for an accurate method of detecting FOG and rating its severity and impact for the determination of the appropriate treatment and follow up [5,6].…”