"Smart glasses" to be developed to improve gait of Parkinson's patients

Researchers at the University of Twente in The Netherlands have begun developing a new app for intelligent glasses, such as Google Glass, which may soon make it possible to improve the gait of patients suffering from Parkinson's disease and to decrease their risk of falling.

The gait of Parkinson's patients is often disturbed: sometimes this presents as a shuffling movement witht he patient taking small steps, or it may result in the patient constantly looking for additional support. Gait disturbance also increases the chance of a fall, despite the progresses made in medications. 

Researchers have established that the gait of patients improves when they regulatly see or hear a pattern. Examples might include stripes on the floor or the regular ticking of a metronome.

Researchers at the University of Twente are now looking at the possibility of using intelligent glasses, such as Google Glass, that are just coming on to the consumer market, to provide patients with regular visual or audible patterns which would help improve gait. These patterns may take the form of moving or flashing stripes or shapes which the patient sees through the glasses, or music with varying tempos. The latest intelligent glasses already have inbuilt cameras and accelrometers. By using these, it will be possible to determine which approach works best for each individual patient.

"This is an innovative and relatively simple adaptation of a piece of technology already under development, which has the potential to greatly benefit the lives of patients. However, this use of intelligent glasses is still in the early stages of development and will require proper testing to prove that it is able to improve the gait of patients with PD." - Joseph Masters

View the full press release here.