The effect of a visual walking training based on wearable walking guide devices on the walking ability of Parkinson's disease patients with freezing of gait
Objective:To investigate the effect of a visual walking training based on wearable cueing devices on ground reaction force of Parkinson's disease patients with freezing of gait.Method:Twenty-three PD with FOG(PD+FOG)were selected and twenty healthy controls(HC)were tested in gait laboratory.The experimental group was trained with wearable walking guide devices for 20 minutes,twice a day for one week.The Vicon 3D gait analysis system was used to collect the spatiotemporal parame-ters and the ground reaction force parameters of the non-dominant side and the dominant side including front-back peak,medial-lateral peak and the first vertical peak)of the experimental group and the control group be-fore and after training.Result:①After the intervention,the bilateral step length and velocity of patients in the experimental group in-creased signi ficantly(P<0.05),while cadence,double stance phase decreased significantly(P<0.05).After train-ing,there was no significant difference in the dominant step length,cadence and double stance phase between experimental group and control group(P>0.05).②After the training,bilateral parameters(landing angles of hip joints,the maximum angles of ankle dorsiflexion and plantar flexion,and the ranges of motion of lower limb joints)in the experimental group increased significantly,while the landing angles of knee joints de-creased,and the stage of the first peak of ankle joints was delayed,with statistical significance(P<0.05).Af-ter the training,knee joint landing angle,maximum ankle dorsiflexion angle,the first peak stage of ankle joint,lower limb joint range of motion had no significant difference between the experimental group and the control group in both sides(P>0.05).③After the intervention,the front-back peak value and the first vertical peak of the bilateral ground reaction force in the experimental group were significantly increased(P<0.05),while the medial-lateral peak value of the ground reaction force was significantly decreased(P<0.05).Compared with the control group,there was no significant difference in the backward peak,medial peak of non-domi-nant side and parameters of the dominant side(P>0.05).Conclusion:The visual walking training based on wearable walking guide devices improve the stability and consistency of gait of PD+FOG.
Parkinson's diseasefreezing of gaitwearable walking guide devicesgait analysisground reaction force