A walking aid system for parkinson patient

Abstract

Parkinson disease (PD) affected patients often suffer from abnormalities in gait accompanied with abnormalities in hand movement. External cueing has been shown to improve gait in PD patients. Thus, several technology-assisted solutions are aimed to give external cueing in the form of visual, auditory and vibratory cues. Most of these systems are very expensive and often uses wearable sensors on one’s feet and hands that are often prone to noise, to detect abnormalities in gait/Freezing of Gait (FOG).Here, we present the design of a novel low-cost Smart Walking Aid Stick (SWASt) system that can be easily added as an add-on module on one’s ordinary walking stick. The SWASt is capable of delivering visual, auditory and/or vibratory cues in an individualized manner. The SWASt is also capable of intelligently sensing abnormality in gait or FOG of PD patients even without using any sort of wearable sensors, but instead, picking up cues from one’s hand movement through studying the profile of the walking stick. Subsequently, we conducted a usability study with five PD participants. The preliminary results indicate a potential of SWASt to have implications on one’s average step length and cadence.