Systematic Review of Wearable Sensor Gait Assessment in Parkinson's Disease

This systematic review synthesizes evidence from 41 studies involving 395 participants on using single-point wearable sensors for gait and balance assessment in Parkinson's disease. It evaluates clinical applications, methodological quality, and reporting standards, with data extracted into a structured table. The review identifies frequently reported outcomes like gait speed and step length while noting methodological heterogeneity.

Use Cases

• Analyze the distribution of study quality ratings (high-, medium-, low-quality) across the 41 included studies.
• Compare reported sensor specifications and assessment protocols (e.g., Timed Up and Go vs. straight-line walking) from the extracted data.
• Examine the relationship between participant clinical characteristics (mean age 66 years) and the computed gait parameters like cadence or step length.
• Identify trends in methodological reporting gaps for domains like sensor placement or computational methods.

Strengths

• Systematic methodology following PRISMA 2020 guidelines, screening 3,812 records.
• Focuses on 41 included studies with data from 395 participants, providing a defined evidence base.
• Extracted data includes specific clinical and technical details like sensor specifications and computed parameters.

Limitations

• Limited to 41 studies, reflecting a specific and narrow research scope.
• Methodological heterogeneity and incomplete reporting in primary studies hinder cross-study comparability.
• The dataset is a review summary (308.0 KB), not the raw primary study data.

Provenance

Source

figshare, authored by Lorenzo Cavazzuti.

Collection Method

Systematic literature review with data extraction from Medline, CINAHL, Embase, and Scopus.

Time Range

Literature search conducted up to January 2025.

Freshness

Last updated March 2026, based on a literature search up to January 2025.

Geography

Global, based on the international literature reviewed.