Quantification of upper body movements during gait in older adults and in those with Parkinson's disease: impact of acceleration realignment methodologies.

摘要

The upper body accelerations of people with Parkinson’s disease (PD) measured by inertial measurementudunits (IMUs) may contribute towards diagnostic algorithms and help track disease progression. Beforeudextracting variables related to upper body motion, acceleration signals require realignment to a globaludreference; however, the impact of these techniques on the resulting upper body variables is unclear.udTherefore, the aim of this investigation was to examine the impact of four different realignment methodsuddesigned to correct acceleration signals on a range of upper body variables in older adults and in patientsudwith PD. Two minutes of continuous gait were measured in 54 community-dwelling older adultsud(71.1 �6.7 years) and 60 people with PD (age: 68.5 � 9.1 years). Three IMUs placed on the 5th lumbarudvertebra, 7th cervical vertebra and the back of the head recorded the acceleration of the upper body. Audselection of upper body variables sensitive to impaired upper body control in PD and four accelerationudrealignment methods were compared. A mixed-model ANOVA showed that the choice of realignmentudmethod significantly affected the values of upper body variables as well as their ability to discriminateudbetween the PD and control group. Our findings indicate researchers and clinicians should be cautiousudwhen comparing upper body variables extracted from IMUs using different realignment methods, andudconsideration of realignmenttechnique will be important when identifying the most sensitive markers ofuddisease presence and progression. Therefore, it’s strongly recommend that researchers consider andudreport their realignment methods when assessing upper body variables during gait