Extended Data Fig. 3: Intermittent assistance without verbal prompts.
From: Soft robotic apparel to avert freezing of gait in Parkinson’s disease
a, Time series data of applied hip flexion force (top) and participant’s stride length (bottom). Sequential intervals of 30-s bouts with and without assistance were implemented across three intervals amounting to a total of 3 min of walking. Different from Fig. 3, the operator did not give any verbal notice of the assistance mode change to the participant. Data during ASSIST ON and ASSIST OFF are plotted in red and gray, respectively, and the gray shaded regions indicate FoG episodes during ASSIST OFF. There was no FoG episode during ASSIST ON. b, Stride length per interval. Stride lengths in all intervals are presented in box plots (center line: median; box limits: upper and lower quartiles; whiskers: 1.5 × interquartile range; points: outliers), and asterisks indicate statistically significant differences (two-sided randomization test with a stride-level median as a test statistic; ***P < 0.001). Interval 1 (n=26 independent strides for ASSIST ON and n=32 independent strides for ASSIST OFF; P < 0.001), interval 2 (n=29 independent strides for ASSIST ON and n=31 independent strides for ASSIST OFF; P < 0.001), and interval 3 (n=26 independent strides for ASSIST ON and n=19 independent strides for ASSIST OFF; P < 0.001). c, Occurrence of freezing per interval based on duration (left y axis) and percent time spent freezing (right y axis).
