AUTHOR=Pilotto Andrea , Rizzardi Andrea , Zatti Cinzia , Hansen Clint , Donini Antonio , Romijnders Robbin , Maetzler Walter , Padovani Alessandro 

TITLE=Unsupervised but not supervised gait parameters are related to fatigue in Parkinson’s disease: a pilot study

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience

VOLUME=15

YEAR=2023

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/aging-neuroscience/articles/10.3389/fnagi.2023.1279722

DOI=10.3389/fnagi.2023.1279722

ISSN=1663-4365

ABSTRACT=<sec><title>Introduction</title><p>Fatigue is a common and disabling symptom in Parkinson’s disease (PD), also affecting gait. Detection of fatigue-associated changes of gait using mobile health technologies (MHT) could become increasingly effective.</p></sec><sec><title>Methods</title><p>Cognitively unimpaired PD patients without fluctuations (UPDRS IV &lt; 1) underwent a standard neurological assessment including the PD-Fatigue scale (PFS-16). PD patients with (PD-F) and without fatigue (PD-N) were matched for age, sex, cognitive function and disease severity. Each participant underwent MHT gait assessment under supervised condition (SC) and unsupervised condition (UC).</p></sec><sec><title>Results</title><p>Gait parameters of 21 PD-F and 21 PD-N did not significantly differ under SC. Under UC, PD-F showed higher step time, step time variability and asymmetry index compared to PD-N and the PFS-16 correlated with step time.</p></sec><sec><title>Conclusion</title><p>This is the first MHT-based study with PD patients showing a correlation between fatigue and gait parameters. In addition, the data collected suggest that UC is clearly superior to SC in addressing this question.</p></sec>