Machine learning approach to gait analysis for Parkinson’s disease detection and severity classification

Parkinson's Disease is a progressively advancing neurological condition. Its severity is evaluated by utilizing the Hoehn and Yahr staging scale. Such assessments may be inconsistent, are more time-consuming, and expensive for patients. To address these shortcomings, this article introduces a machine learning-based gait classification system to assist doctors in identifying the stages of Parkinson's disease. This study utilizes two open-access benchmark datasets from PhysioNet and Figshare to assess ground reaction force collected from patients diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease. This study presents experiments conducted using machine learning algorithms namely Decision Tree, Random Forest, Extreme Gradient Boost, and Light Gradient Boosting Machine classification algorithms to predict severity of Parkinson's Disease. Among all the four algorithms, Light Gradient Boosting Machine classification algorithm have proven its supremacy. It gave an accuracy of 98.25%, Precision of 98.35%, Recall of 98.25%, and F1 Score of 98% for dataset 1. The performance of the algorithm slightly declines on dataset 2. It reports accuracy of 85%, Precision of 95%, Recall of 85% and F1 Score of 89% for dataset 2. Furthermore, this study used Explainable Artificial Intelligence to display the LightGBM classifier's classification pathways for Parkinson's disease severity prediction using Hoehn and Yahr staging on the scale from 0 to 5. This is helps the health experts in decision making. This work provides automated assistance to doctors for the rapid screening of Parkinson's disease patients based on disease severity. This work leaves a scope for integrating wearable sensors and developing real-time monitoring system for screening of Parkinson's Disease patients.