Congratulations to CDT student Immi Biswas on her recent publication 'Wearable GPS and Accelerometer Technologies for Monitoring Mobility and Physical Activity in Neurodegenerative Disorders: a Systematic Review' in Sensors. Immi is co-first author, and undertook the methodology, formal analysis, investigation, data curation, original draft preparation, writing review and editing and visualization.

This publication will enable researchers to get insights into what has been done in relation to clinical research so far in this area. It also indicated that more research needs to be conducted on wearable GPS to monitor mobility in patients with neurodegenerative disease. These technologies should be integrated into the clinical practice in the testing of new therapies, monitoring of disease progression and risk prediction for the NDD population.

Publication summary: Neurodegenerative disorders (NDDs) constitute an increasing global burden and can significantly impair an individual’s mobility, physical activity (PA), and independence. Remote monitoring has been difficult without relying on diaries/questionnaires which are more challenging for people with dementia to complete. Wearable global positioning system (GPS) sensors and accelerometers present a cost-effective and non-invasive way to passively monitor mobility and PA. In addition, changes in sensor-derived outcomes (such as walking behaviour, sedentary, and active activity) may serve as potential biomarkers of disease onset, progression, and response to treatment. We performed a systematic search across four databases to identify papers published within the past 5 years, in which wearable GPS or accelerometers were used to monitor mobility or PA in patients with common NDDs (Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease, motor neuron diseases/amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, vascular parkinsonism, and vascular dementia). Disease and technology-specific vocabulary were searched singly, and then in combination, identifying 4985 papers. Following deduplication, we screened 3115 papers and retained 28 studies following a full-text review. One study used wearable GPS and accelerometers, while 27 studies used solely accelerometers in NDDs. GPS-derived measures had been validated against current gold standard measures in one Parkinson’s cohort, suggesting that the technology may be applicable to other NDDs. In contrast, accelerometers are widely utilised in NDDs and have been operationalised in well-designed clinical trials.