title: Home detection of freezing of gait using support vector machines through a single waist-worn triaxial accelerometer.
abstract: Among Parkinson's disease (PD) symptoms, freezing of gait (FoG) is one of the most debilitating. To assess FoG, current clinical practice mostly employs repeated evaluations over weeks and months based on questionnaires, which may not accurately map the severity of this symptom. The use of a non-invasive system to monitor the activities of daily living (ADL) and the PD symptoms experienced by patients throughout the day could provide a more accurate and objective evaluation of FoG in order to better understand the evolution of the disease and allow for a more informed decision-making process in making adjustments to the patient's treatment plan. This paper presents a new algorithm to detect FoG with a machine learning approach based on Support Vector Machines (SVM) and a single tri-axial accelerometer worn at the waist. The method is evaluated through the acceleration signals in an outpatient setting gathered from 21 PD patients at their home and evaluated under two different conditions: first, a generic model is tested by using a leave-one-out approach and, second, a personalised model that also uses part of the dataset from each patient. Results show a significant improvement in the accuracy of the personalised model compared to the generic model, showing enhancement in the specificity and sensitivity geometric mean (GM) of 7.2%. Furthermore, the SVM approach adopted has been compared to the most comprehensive FoG detection method currently in use (referred to as MBFA in this paper). Results of our novel generic method provide an enhancement of 11.2% in the GM compared to the MBFA generic model and, in the case of the personalised model, a 10% of improvement with respect to the MBFA personalised model. Thus, our results show that a machine learning approach can be used to monitor FoG during the daily life of PD patients and, furthermore, personalised models for FoG detection can be used to improve monitoring accuracy.
authors.affiliation: Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya - BarcelonaTech (UPC), Technical Research Centre for Dependency Care and Autonomous Living (CETPD), Vilanova i la Geltrú, Spain.
authors.forename: Daniel
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-2598-6772
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Rodríguez-Martín
authors.affiliation: Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya - BarcelonaTech (UPC), Technical Research Centre for Dependency Care and Autonomous Living (CETPD), Vilanova i la Geltrú, Spain.|Sense4Care, Barcelona, Spain.
authors.forename: Albert
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Samà
authors.affiliation: Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya - BarcelonaTech (UPC), Technical Research Centre for Dependency Care and Autonomous Living (CETPD), Vilanova i la Geltrú, Spain.|Sense4Care, Barcelona, Spain.
authors.forename: Carlos
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Pérez-López
authors.affiliation: Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya - BarcelonaTech (UPC), Technical Research Centre for Dependency Care and Autonomous Living (CETPD), Vilanova i la Geltrú, Spain.|Sense4Care, Barcelona, Spain.
authors.forename: Andreu
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Català
authors.affiliation: Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya - BarcelonaTech (UPC), Technical Research Centre for Dependency Care and Autonomous Living (CETPD), Vilanova i la Geltrú, Spain.|Sense4Care, Barcelona, Spain.
authors.forename: Joan M
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Moreno Arostegui
authors.affiliation: Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya - BarcelonaTech (UPC), Technical Research Centre for Dependency Care and Autonomous Living (CETPD), Vilanova i la Geltrú, Spain.|Sense4Care, Barcelona, Spain.
authors.forename: Joan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Cabestany
authors.affiliation: Unidad de Parkinson y trastornos del movimiento (UParkinson), Barcelona, Spain.
authors.forename: Àngels
authors.initials: À
authors.lastname: Bayés
authors.affiliation: Unidad de Parkinson y trastornos del movimiento (UParkinson), Barcelona, Spain.
authors.forename: Sheila
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Alcaine
authors.affiliation: Unidad de Parkinson y trastornos del movimiento (UParkinson), Barcelona, Spain.
authors.forename: Berta
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Mestre
authors.affiliation: Unidad de Parkinson y trastornos del movimiento (UParkinson), Barcelona, Spain.
authors.forename: Anna
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Prats
authors.affiliation: Unidad de Parkinson y trastornos del movimiento (UParkinson), Barcelona, Spain.
authors.forename: M Cruz
authors.initials: MC
authors.lastname: Crespo
authors.affiliation: School of Medicine, National University of Ireland Galway (NUIG), Galway, Ireland.
authors.forename: Timothy J
authors.initials: TJ
authors.lastname: Counihan
authors.affiliation: School of Medicine, National University of Ireland Galway (NUIG), Galway, Ireland.
authors.forename: Patrick
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Browne
authors.affiliation: Electrical & Electronic Engineering Department, National University of Ireland Galway (NUIG), Galway, Ireland.
authors.forename: Leo R
authors.initials: LR
authors.lastname: Quinlan
authors.affiliation: Electrical & Electronic Engineering Department, National University of Ireland Galway (NUIG), Galway, Ireland.
authors.forename: Gearóid
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: ÓLaighin
authors.affiliation: Electrical & Electronic Engineering Department, National University of Ireland Galway (NUIG), Galway, Ireland.
authors.forename: Dean
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Sweeney
authors.affiliation: Maccabi Healthcare Services, Tel Aviv, Israel.
authors.forename: Hadas
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Lewy
authors.affiliation: Maccabi Healthcare Services, Tel Aviv, Israel.|Sackler Faculty of Medicine, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel.
authors.forename: Joseph
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Azuri
authors.affiliation: Maccabi Healthcare Services, Tel Aviv, Israel.
authors.forename: Gabriel
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Vainstein
authors.affiliation: IRCCS Fondazione Santa Lucia, Rome, Italy.
authors.forename: Roberta
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Annicchiarico
authors.affiliation: IRCCS Fondazione Santa Lucia, Rome, Italy.
authors.forename: Alberto
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Costa
authors.affiliation: Sense4Care, Barcelona, Spain.|Electrical & Electronic Engineering Department, National University of Ireland Galway (NUIG), Galway, Ireland.
authors.forename: Alejandro
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Rodríguez-Molinero
mesh_terms: D061725:Accelerometry / Q000379:methods*; D000203:Activities of Daily Living; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010300:Parkinson Disease / Q000503:physiopathology*; D060388:Support Vector Machine; D016138:Walking