Assessment of Functional Activities in Individuals with Parkinson’s Disease Using a Simple and Reliable Smartphone-Based Procedure

Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a progressive neurodegenerative disorder leading to functional impairment. In order to monitor the progression of the disease and to implement individualized therapeutic approaches, functional assessments are paramount. The aim of this study was to determine the impact of PD on balance, gait, turn-to-sit and sit-to-stand by means of a single short-duration reliable test using a single inertial measurement unit embedded in a smartphone device. Study participants included 29 individuals with mild-to moderate PD (PG) and 31 age-matched healthy counterparts (CG). Functional assessment with FallSkip ® included postural control (i.e., Medial-Lateral (ML) and Anterior-Posterior (AP) displacements), gait (Vertical (V) and Medial-Lateral (ML) ranges), turn-to-sit (time) and sit-to-stand (power) tests, total time and gait reaction time. Our results disclosed a reliable procedure (intra-class correlation coefficient (ICC) = 0.58–0.92). PG displayed significantly larger ML and AP displacements during the postural test, a decrease in ML range while walking and a longer time needed to perform the turn-to-sit task than CG ( p < 0.05). No differences between groups were found for V range, sit-to-stand test, total time and reaction time ( p > 0.05). In conclusion, people with mild-to-moderate PD exhibit impaired postural control, altered gait strategy and slower turn-to-sit performance than age-matched healthy people.