A New Methodological Approach Integrating Motion Capture and Pressure-Sensitive Gait Data to Assess Functional Mobility in Parkinson's Disease: A Two-Phase Study.

Existing clinical assessments of Parkinson's disease (PD) primarily focus on stratifying symptom severity or progression rate, which limits their ability to capture changes in functional mobility-an important factor in evaluating rehabilitation outcomes. To address this gap, we developed a novel methodology, the Functional Mobility Assessment for Parkinson's (FMA-P), which integrates motion capture and pressure-sensitive gait analysis to explore key aspects of functional mobility. Study 1. To develop the FMA-P, we conducted a pilot study involving 12 individuals with PD and 12 age-matched healthy controls, who each completed the FMA-P sequence three times. The sequence included the following tasks: rising from a chair, walking through a doorway, turning, bending to pick up and place an object, and returning to a seated position. Results from Study 1 demonstrated that the FMA-P is a sensitive tool for identifying functional impairments in PD. In particular, significant differences between people with Parkinson's (PwP) and controls were observed during chair rise (higher peak trunk inclination,