Development and preliminary validation of a wearable system for postural assistance of persons with Parkinson's disease

Parkinson’s disease (PD) is the second most common neurodegenerative disease affecting the central nervous system. It is a movement disorder, clinically marked by motor symptoms such as bradykinesia, rest tremor, rigidity, and postural instability, which make disability progress, with mild to severe impairment in everyday activities and life quality. Currently available treatments, such as levodopa and deep brain stimulation (DBS), only address symptoms without stopping disease progression. These approaches, combined with gait and balance training, help maintain or improve motor symptoms and related pain. Parkinson's disease motor symptoms can be monitored using clinical rating scales such as the Movement Disorder Society Unified Parkinson Disease Rating Scale (MDS-UPDRS). Additionally, wearable inertial sensors can provide quantitative data, allowing for a complete understanding of the disease progression. Wearable sensors also show their potential for rehabilitating disease-associated postural disorders. The thesis work is composed of two sections: 1. Rehabilitation of posture. The project deals with the development of a biofeedback system for postural rehabilitation of persons with PD and postural deformities (Pisa syndrome). The prototype consists of an Android mobile application, a wearable sensor, and a postural harness. It allows individuals to autonomously correct their posture during home training exercises by following the haptic feedback of the sensor, which is activated every time the inclination angle exceeds a threshold value set by the clinician. 2. Evaluation of posture. The focus is the analysis of postural sway in PD subjects during quiet standing performed before (off state) and after (on state) the medication intake, both with open and closed eyes. The aim is to investigate the correlation between the total clinical score of the MDS-UPDRS scale (in both off and on states) and the sway parameters extracted from the corresponding medication state.