Clinical Application and Challenges of Wearable Sensors in Freezing of Gait Monitoring in Parkinson’s Disease

Parkinson’s disease (PD) is the second common neurodegenerative disorder in the world. Freezing of Gait (FOG) is one of the most harmful symptoms of PD. Traditional assessment methods, such as questionnaire surveys and non-wearable monitoring devices are limited by patients’ subjective cognitive, clinicians’ experience, and the suddenness and fluctuations of FOG. In recent years, wearable sensors have become a new way for real-time FOG monitoring in various scenarios for a long term. This study reviews the characteristics of PD-FOG and its limitations of traditional assessment. It explores the advantages and necessities of wearable sensors in FOG real-time monitoring. This study also analyzes three of the common sensors in a broad vision, which present both values and challenges of them. In addition, current challenges in sensitivity, specifically, stability, security and disconnection of wearable monitoring technology are discussed. Overall, FOG monitoring based on wearable sensors has had a range of achievements, but further developments are needed to improve its performance and comfort before a perfect clinical transformation.