A novel single-sensor-based method for the detection of gait-cycle breakdown and freezing of gait in Parkinson’s disease

Objective measurement of walking speed and gait deficits are an important clinical tool in chronic illness management. We previously reported in Parkinson’s disease that different types of gait tests can now be implemented and administered in the clinic or at home using Ambulosono smartphone-sensor technology, whereby movement sensing protocols can be standardized under voice instruction. However, a common challenge that remains for such wearable sensor systems is how meaningful data can be extracted from seemingly “noisy” raw sensor data, and do so with a high level of accuracy and efficiency. Here, we describe a novel pattern recognition algorithm for the automated detection of gait-cycle breakdown and freezing episodes. Ambulosono-gait-cycle-breakdown-and-freezing-detection (Free-D) integrates a nonlinear m-dimensional phase-space data extraction method with machine learning and Monte Carlo analysis for model building and pattern generalization. We first trained Free-D using a small number of data samples obtained from thirty participants during freezing of gait tests. We then tested the accuracy of Free-D via Monte Carlo cross-validation. We found Free-D to be remarkably effective at detecting gait-cycle breakdown, with mode error rates of 0% and mean error rates < 5%. We also demonstrate the utility of Free-D by applying it to continuous holdout traces not used for either training or testing, and found it was able to identify gait-cycle breakdown and freezing events of varying duration. These results suggest that advanced artificial intelligence and automation tools can be developed to enhance the quality, efficiency, and the expansion of wearable sensor data processing capabilities to meet market and industry demand.