ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Neurol.

Sec. Neurotechnology

Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fneur.2025.1609823

This article is part of the Research TopicIntegrating Technology into Advanced Parkinson's Disease Management: From Screening and Evaluation to Treatment and PreventionView all 5 articles

Quantification of rehabilitation for patients with Parkinson’s disease and related disorders using wearable devices; A proof of concept

Provisionally accepted
  • Juntendo University, Bunkyō, Japan

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

To date, disease-modifying therapies have not been established for Parkinson’s disease (PD) or atypical parkinsonisms. Exercise has been reported to help maintain functional abilities and delay disease progression. However, no consensus exists regarding the type, amount, or timing of exercise for each disease stage. Therefore, this study aimed to quantify rehabilitation interventions and identify optimal approaches based on patient characteristics. Participants diagnosed with PD or related disorders and residing in an elderly care facility received various rehabilitation therapies—including water stimulation bed, therapeutic massage, sit-to-stand training, gait training, cycle ergometer training, aerobic training using treadmill, stretching, balance training, calisthenics, and resistance training—while wearing a wearable device between April and May 2022. The following parameters were evaluated: differences in body surface temperature and pulse rate before and after rehabilitation, calories burned, steps taken during rehabilitation, and upper and lower extremity activity indices.A total of 49 participants were included, and the frequency of rehabilitation sessions was determined at the discretion of the therapist based on each participant’s condition. Each rehabilitation session was quantified and visualized using radar charts. This study offers insight into the quantification and visualization of rehabilitation effects in patients with progressive neurodegenerative diseases presenting with parkinsonism. Future efforts should focus on accumulating data under standardized conditions and assessing motor symptoms longitudinally to develop personalized rehabilitation programs for patients with neurodegenerative disorders.

Keywords: Parkinson's disease, Rehabilitation, Exercise Therapy, Wearable Device, Parkinson plus syndrome, Progressive Supranuclear Palsy, Corticobasal Degeneration, digital biomarker

Received: 11 Apr 2025; Accepted: 04 Jun 2025.

Copyright: © 2025 Kamo, Oyama, Nagaki and Hattori. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

* Correspondence:
Hikaru Kamo, Juntendo University, Bunkyō, Japan
Genko Oyama, Juntendo University, Bunkyō, Japan

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