Trial reportJournal of neuroengineering and rehabilitation2018
SPARC: a new approach to quantifying gait smoothness in patients with Parkinson's disease.
Trial report in Journal of neuroengineering and rehabilitation, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 48 papers, 4 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
48 citing papers in PubMed, 4 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 88 citations in OpenAlex.
- Characterizing gait in people with multiple sclerosis using digital data from smartphone sensors: A proposed framework.Multiple sclerosis (Houndmills, Basingstoke, England) · 2025Pooled it
- Meta-analysis of the quantitative assessment of lower extremity motor function in elderly individuals based on objective detection.Journal of neuroengineering and rehabilitation · 2024Pooled it
- Smoothness metrics for reaching performance after stroke. Part 1: which one to choose?Journal of neuroengineering and rehabilitation · 2021Pooled it
- Pooled it
- Cognitive-motor dual-task training improves dynamic stability during straight and curved gait in patients with multiple sclerosis: a randomized controlled trial.European journal of physical and rehabilitation medicine · 2024Trial
- Vestibular Rehabilitation Improves Gait Quality and Activities of Daily Living in People with Severe Traumatic Brain Injury: A Randomized Clinical Trial.Sensors (Basel, Switzerland) · 2022Trial
- A comparison of the effects and usability of two exoskeletal robots with and without robotic actuation for upper extremity rehabilitation among patients with stroke: a single-blinded randomised controlled pilot study.Journal of neuroengineering and rehabilitation · 2020Trial
- Movement smoothness and plasma proteomics are associated with functional impairment in knee osteoarthritis.Osteoarthritis and cartilage open · 2026Article
- Measurement of Cognitive and Kinematic Adaptation in Exoskeleton-Assisted Locomotion: Validation of an XR-Based Framework.Sensors (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Evaluating Gait Quality in People with Hip Osteoarthritis During Habitual and Fast Walking Using a Trunk Inertial Measurement Unit in Clinical Settings.Sensors (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Exploring Bidirectional Associations Between Voice Acoustics and Objective Motor Metrics in Parkinson's Disease.Brain sciences · 2025Article
- Movement smoothness at term-equivalent age is associated with motor developmental delay in preterm infants.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Loss of Joint Individuation and Abnormal Synergy Post Stroke in Upper Limb Movements.Neurorehabilitation and neural repair · 2025Article
- An interpretable machine learning approach for predicting and grading hip osteoarthritis using gait analysis.BMC musculoskeletal disorders · 2025Article
- Systematic review of wearables assessing medication effect on motor function and symptoms in Parkinson's disease.NPJ Parkinson's disease · 2025Article
- In Parkinson's disease, dual-tasking reduces gait smoothness during the straight-walking and turning-while-walking phases of the Timed Up and Go test.BMC sports science, medicine & rehabilitation · 2025Article
- Enhancing safety monitoring in post-stroke rehabilitation through wearable technologies.Clinical rehabilitation · 2025Observational
- Detecting Freezing of Gait in Parkinson Disease Using Multiple Wearable Sensors Sets During Various Walking Tasks Relative to Medication Conditions (DetectFoG): Protocol for a Prospective Cohort Study.JMIR research protocols · 2025Article
- Motion Smoothness Analysis of the Gait Cycle, Segmented by Stride and Associated with the Inertial Sensors' Locations.Sensors (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Inertial measurement units to evaluate the efficacity of Equino Varus Foot surgery in post stroke hemiparetic patients: a feasibility study.Journal of neuroengineering and rehabilitation · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
6 authors at 2 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundImpairments in biomechanics and neural control can disrupt the timing and muscle pattern activation necessary for smooth gait. Gait is one of the most affected motor characteristics in Parkinson's disease (PD), but its smoothness has not been well-studied. This work applies the recently proposed spectral arc length measure (SPARC) to study, for the first time, gait in patients with PD. We hypothesized that the gait of patients with PD would be less smooth than that of healthy controls, as reflected in the SPARC measures.
methodsThe gait of 101 PD patients and 39 healthy controls was assessed using an inertial sensor. Smoothness of gait was estimated with SPARC (respectively from acceleration and angular velocity signals, SPARC-Acc and SPARC-Gyro) and harmonic ratios. Correlations between SPARC, traditional gait measures and the motor part of the Unified Parkinson's Disease Rating Scale (UPDRS) were evaluated. Measurements and analysis were conducted with and without anti-PD medication.
resultsSPARC measures were lower (less smooth) in PD than in controls (SPARC-Acc: PD: - 6.11 ± 0.74; CO: -5.17 ± 0.79; p < 0.001). When comparing PD to controls, SPARC-Acc differed more than other measures of gait (i.e., largest effect size, which was > 1). SPARC measures were correlated with UPDRS motor score (r = - 0.65), while they were independent of other measures of gait smoothness. PD gait in the on state was smoother than in the off state (p < 0.001).
conclusionsSPARC calculated from trunk acceleration and angular velocity signals provide valid measures of walking smoothness in PD. SPARC is sensitive to Parkinson's disease and PD medications and can be used of as another, complementary measure of the motor control of walking in PD.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.