Walking detection for Parkinson’s disease patients and healthy control subjects measured with a smartphone accelerometer using mean amplitude deviation algorithm

Parkinson's disease is a neurodegenerative disorder that affects mobility, leading to a decline in the patient's quality of life. Analyzing gait for these patients aims to improve the mobility of the Parkinson’s disease patients. The goal of this study was to validate mean amplitude devia...

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Main Authors: Milla Juutinen, Jari Ruokolainen, Juha Puustinen, Anu Holm, Mark van Gils, Antti Vehkaoja
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Finnish Social and Health Informatics Association 2025-05-01
Series:Finnish Journal of eHealth and eWelfare
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Online Access:https://journal.fi/finjehew/article/view/156622
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author Milla Juutinen
Jari Ruokolainen
Juha Puustinen
Anu Holm
Mark van Gils
Antti Vehkaoja
author_facet Milla Juutinen
Jari Ruokolainen
Juha Puustinen
Anu Holm
Mark van Gils
Antti Vehkaoja
author_sort Milla Juutinen
collection DOAJ
description Parkinson's disease is a neurodegenerative disorder that affects mobility, leading to a decline in the patient's quality of life. Analyzing gait for these patients aims to improve the mobility of the Parkinson’s disease patients. The goal of this study was to validate mean amplitude deviation for detecting gait in Parkinson’s disease patients and healthy controls. This method is robust and orientation-independent and has accurate results on physical activity detection for different study populations. The novelty of this study is to use and evaluate a previously validated method with Parkinson’s disease patients instead of healthy young subjects as in earlier studies. We utilized inertial measurement unit data measured using smartphones from pre-existing datasets with pre-defined and labeled activities and free-living data containing continuously collected over three consecutive days. One dataset included 30 healthy adults, and the other two included in total of 62 and 68 Parkinson’s disease patients and 40 and 39 healthy controls, respectively. The sensitivity of the algorithm in a controlled measurement setting was 100% and 98.7% for healthy adults and a combined dataset of Parkinson’s disease patients and control subjects, respectively. Correspondingly, the specificity was 74.9% and 81.6%. Visual inspection of the free-living data showed that the algorithm provided durations and timings of walking activities, and walking took place during the daytime as anticipated for subjects with a typical daily rhythm. Median walking times were under ten minutes per hour. The results reached the same performance range as earlier studies with an orientation-independent approach, justifying the feasibility of this method. Therefore, this study validated the use of mean amplitude deviation for walking detection in Parkinson’s disease patients and healthy adults. Future research will utilize the detected walking segments in analyzing the motor symptoms of the disease aiming to improve patient well-being through identifying the needs for additional healthcare interventions.
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spelling doaj-art-2afc2c0e3d674358a292b4caad1c849b2025-08-20T03:10:58ZengFinnish Social and Health Informatics AssociationFinnish Journal of eHealth and eWelfare1798-07982025-05-0117210.23996/fjhw.156622Walking detection for Parkinson’s disease patients and healthy control subjects measured with a smartphone accelerometer using mean amplitude deviation algorithmMilla Juutinen0Jari Ruokolainen1Juha Puustinen2Anu Holm3Mark van Gils4Antti Vehkaoja5Faculty of Medicine and Health Technology, Tampere UniversityFaculty of Business and Management, Tampere University; Unit of Neurology, Satasairaala Central Hospital, Wellbeing Services County of Satakunta; School of Technology and Innovations, University of VaasaUnit of Neurology, Satasairaala Central Hospital, Wellbeing Services County of SatakuntaSatakunta University of Applied SciencesFaculty of Medicine and Health Technology, Tampere UniversityFaculty of Medicine and Health Technology, Tampere University Parkinson's disease is a neurodegenerative disorder that affects mobility, leading to a decline in the patient's quality of life. Analyzing gait for these patients aims to improve the mobility of the Parkinson’s disease patients. The goal of this study was to validate mean amplitude deviation for detecting gait in Parkinson’s disease patients and healthy controls. This method is robust and orientation-independent and has accurate results on physical activity detection for different study populations. The novelty of this study is to use and evaluate a previously validated method with Parkinson’s disease patients instead of healthy young subjects as in earlier studies. We utilized inertial measurement unit data measured using smartphones from pre-existing datasets with pre-defined and labeled activities and free-living data containing continuously collected over three consecutive days. One dataset included 30 healthy adults, and the other two included in total of 62 and 68 Parkinson’s disease patients and 40 and 39 healthy controls, respectively. The sensitivity of the algorithm in a controlled measurement setting was 100% and 98.7% for healthy adults and a combined dataset of Parkinson’s disease patients and control subjects, respectively. Correspondingly, the specificity was 74.9% and 81.6%. Visual inspection of the free-living data showed that the algorithm provided durations and timings of walking activities, and walking took place during the daytime as anticipated for subjects with a typical daily rhythm. Median walking times were under ten minutes per hour. The results reached the same performance range as earlier studies with an orientation-independent approach, justifying the feasibility of this method. Therefore, this study validated the use of mean amplitude deviation for walking detection in Parkinson’s disease patients and healthy adults. Future research will utilize the detected walking segments in analyzing the motor symptoms of the disease aiming to improve patient well-being through identifying the needs for additional healthcare interventions. https://journal.fi/finjehew/article/view/156622Parkinson's diseasegaitneurodegenerative diseasessmartphoneacceleration
spellingShingle Milla Juutinen
Jari Ruokolainen
Juha Puustinen
Anu Holm
Mark van Gils
Antti Vehkaoja
Walking detection for Parkinson’s disease patients and healthy control subjects measured with a smartphone accelerometer using mean amplitude deviation algorithm
Finnish Journal of eHealth and eWelfare
Parkinson's disease
gait
neurodegenerative diseases
smartphone
acceleration
title Walking detection for Parkinson’s disease patients and healthy control subjects measured with a smartphone accelerometer using mean amplitude deviation algorithm
title_full Walking detection for Parkinson’s disease patients and healthy control subjects measured with a smartphone accelerometer using mean amplitude deviation algorithm
title_fullStr Walking detection for Parkinson’s disease patients and healthy control subjects measured with a smartphone accelerometer using mean amplitude deviation algorithm
title_full_unstemmed Walking detection for Parkinson’s disease patients and healthy control subjects measured with a smartphone accelerometer using mean amplitude deviation algorithm
title_short Walking detection for Parkinson’s disease patients and healthy control subjects measured with a smartphone accelerometer using mean amplitude deviation algorithm
title_sort walking detection for parkinson s disease patients and healthy control subjects measured with a smartphone accelerometer using mean amplitude deviation algorithm
topic Parkinson's disease
gait
neurodegenerative diseases
smartphone
acceleration
url https://journal.fi/finjehew/article/view/156622
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