Imagine you are walking in the park, enjoying the sunshine, when suddenly your legs feel like they are glued to the ground. You try to take a step forward, but it’s like your feet just won’t listen. This frustrating experience is what many people with Parkinson’s disease (PD) face due to a condition called freezing of gait (FOG), which usually only lasts a few seconds.
This phenomenon increases the risk of falls, which leads to reduced quality of life.
FOG can happen in different situations, like when someone with Parkinson’s initiates walking, passing through narrow spaces like doorways, or turning around. It can occur when they are under time pressure (freezing during an unexpected ringing telephone or doorbell), trying to perform 2 tasks simultaneously or when arriving at the destination. These triggers make everyday activities tricky to do, leading to feelings of frustration, anxiety, or embarrassment. It can make people hesitant to go out and engage in outdoor activities. Fear of falling makes things even more challenging, which further limits the independence of movement.
While researchers are still trying to understand exactly why freezing of gait (FOG) happens, it is suggested that the problem might be due to disruption in communication between brain and spinal cord. Imagine your brain is like a controller, telling your body what to do, and the spinal cord is like the messenger delivering those instructions to your muscles. If there’s a glitch in that communication, it causes moments where you feel stuck while walking.
But what if there was a simple, non-invasive solution to help you overcome these moments of hesitation and walk with confidence again? That’s where WALK comes in. WALK is a non-invasive neuromodulatory wearable device to reduce FOG episodes. It is worn on the mid-lower part of the thighs of both legs. WALK uses a special kind of patterned stimulation that sends signals to the muscle. This muscle stimulation improves excitability at spinal level, helping to mitigate the disruption of communication caused by PD. This type of patterned stimulation has been shown to reduce the freezing of gait, slowness, and falls in Parkinson’s disease.
Using this muscle stimulation also improves coordination while walking. But that’s not all! WALK also has sensors that collect data and keep track of how you’re doing while you walk. It provides real-time feedback and stimulation, which helps individuals overcome FOG and enhance walking stability.
WALK helps to reduce FOG or recover faster from freezing of gait episodes in individuals with Parkinson’s disease by increasing the drive to spinal cord. With additional benefits such as:
- Improve walking stability
- Non-invasive and user friendly
- Enhanced mobility and independence
- Improve Quality of Life
So, with WALK by your side, you can step forward with ease and confidence, free from fear and hesitation.
To collect crucial data that helps detect falls and imbalance symptoms early, WALK also has a gamified therapy platform that makes therapy engaging and provides reports to help individuals understand the progression of their disease, take steps early and maintain mobility for a long time.
Learn more about WALK at https://www.lifesparktech.com/pd-walk
WALK : A wearable mobility aid for Parkinson's Disease
References:
1. Freezing of gait: moving forward on a mysterious clinical phenomenon. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1474442211701430?via%3Dihub
2. Freezing of gait: understanding the complexity of an enigmatic phenomenon https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6938035/
3. The Factors that Induce or Overcome Freezing of Gait in Parkinson’s Disease https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5452481/
4. Neurophysiological mechanisms of gait disturbance in advanced Parkinson’s disease patients https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/ncn3.12683
5. Influence of Leg Muscle Vibration on Human Walking https://journals.physiology.org/doi/full/10.1152/jn.2000.84.4.1737