Patients with Parkinson’s disease (PD) can present several biomechanical alterations, such as tremors, rigidity, bradykinesia, postural instability, and gait alterations. The Movement Disorder Society–Unified Parkinson’s Disease Rating Scale (MDS-UPDRS) has a good reputation for uniformly evaluating motor and non-motor aspects of PD. However, motor clinical assessment depends on visual observations, which are mostly qualitative, with subtle differences not recognized. Many works have examined evaluations and analyses of these biomechanical alterations. However, there are no reviews on this topic. This paper presents a scoping review of computer models based on expert knowledge and machine learning (ML). The eligibility criteria and sources of evidence are represented by papers in journals indexed in the Journal Citation Report (JCR), and this paper analyzes the data, methods, results, and application opportunities in clinical environments or as support for new research. Finally, we analyze the results’ explainability and the acceptance of such systems as tools to help physicians, both now and in future contributions. Many researchers have addressed PD biomechanics by using explainable artificial intelligence or combining several analysis models to provide explainable and transparent results, considering possible biases and precision and creating trust and security when using the models.
Read full abstract