A variety of clinical scales are available to assess dyskinesia severity in Parkinson's disease patients; however, such assessments are subjective, do not provide long term monitoring, and their use is subject to inter- and intra-rater variability. In this paper, an objective dyskinesia score was developed using an IMU -based motion capture system. Deep brain stimulation (DBS) surgery is currently the only acute intervention that results in the rapidly progressive reduction of dyskinesia's severity; hence, this form of therapy was selected as a model to validate the proposed method. Thirteen Parkinson's disease participants undergoing DBS surgery and 12 age-matched healthy control participants were assessed using the motion capture system. Concurrent Unified Dyskinesia Rating Scale (UDysRS) ratings were also performed. Parkinson's disease participants were assessed pre-operatively and for five visits post-operatively while seated at rest, during arms outstretched and while performing an action task. The kinematic data were used to develop an objective measure defined as the dyskinesia severity score. Generally, a strong correlation was observed between the UDysRS ratings and the full-body dyskinesia severity scores. The results suggest that it is feasible and clinically meaningful to utilize an objective full-body dyskinesia score for the assessment of dyskinesia. The portable motion capture system along with the developed software can be used remotely to monitor the full-body severity of dyskinesia, necessary for therapeutic optimization, especially in the patients home environment.

Recent studies have focused on facilitating perception and outdoor navigation for people who live with blindness or some form of vision loss. However, a significant portion of these studies is centered around treatment and vision rehabilitation, leaving some immediate needs, such as interaction with the surrounding objects or recognizing colors and fine patterns without tactile feedback. This study targets such needs and delivers a straightforward communication method with the environment using a wearable, unobtrusive device. We initially discuss the advantages and limitations of related works to draw out the best-fitting design concepts. Then, we introduce the potential for emerging technologies such as radio frequency identification. We present the design details and the experimental results of an assistive glove to allow people with vision disabilities to interact with the environment more efficiently. Based on the collected data from 17 blindfolded healthy participants, the implemented system’s success rate in identifying objects was about 96.32%. Overall, 70% of the users found the device very satisfactory.

Older adults’ independent life is compromised due to various problems, such as memory impairments and decision-making difficulties. This work initially proposes an integrated conceptual model for assisted living systems capable of providing helping means for older adults with mild memory impairments and their caregivers. The proposed model has four main components: (1) an indoor location and heading measurement unit in the local fog layer, (2) an augmented reality (AR) application to make interactions with the user, (3) an IoT-based fuzzy decision-making system to handle the direct and environmental interactions with the user, and (4) a user interface for caregivers to monitor the situation in real time and send reminders once required. Then, a preliminary proof-of-concept implementation is performed to evaluate the suggested mode’s feasibility. Functional experiments are carried out based on various factual scenarios, which validate the effectiveness of the proposed approach. The accuracy and response time of the proposed proof-of-concept system are further examined. The results suggest that implementing such a system is feasible and has the potential to promote assisted living. The suggested system has the potential to promote scalable and customizable assisted living systems to reduce the challenges of independent living for older adults.