Gender based assessment of gait rhythms during dual-task in Parkinson’s disease and its early detection

Abstract

Cognitive function and dual-task can reduce the quality of life in PD patients, but this relation of cognitive function and gait has some complications. To obtain more knowledge about the relation of cognitive function and gait, this study has been performed. This work gives male and female gait measures and their variability to determine the different attention-demanding resources for the control and PD groups. It gives the significant gait measures to predict risk of cognitive decline in near future. Twenty five PD patients (age – M = 70.94, F = 68.71) and fourteen controls (age – M = 73.87, F = 70.12 were included to analyzing the effect of dual-task. In both groups (male–female) of healthy and non-healthy gait speed decrease, but variability is more in the females. As expected, the results demonstrate that stance time and stride time increase for both groups in parallel fashion but swing time decrease. Stance and stride time are gait measures that play an essential role in gender-based PD analysis. Apart it, the present study gives an efficient classification technique for early detection of PD. Naïve Bayes classifier performed well with highest accuracy to distinguish the healthy and PD patients for both single task and dual task activities.