BeatWalk

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BeatWalk

We take for granted, when we’re young and strong,
That we can walk about without concern.
But Parkinson’s disease has come along,
And with it, visions of our funeral urn.
We slow down, fearing that we’ll fall headlong
And fracture all our bones from stem to stern.
We’re panicked, cautious, scared – and before long
We walk far less.  Let others have our turn.
But now there’s BeatWalk that you wear outside,
A gizmo that will help you move your feet
And safely step with rhythmic, quickened stride
When walking down a path or on the street.
With BeatWalk’s tunes you’re walking far and wide.
It’s you, not PD, in the driver’s seat.

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What is BeatWalk?  A new music-based smartphone app (developed in 2021) that matches your gait to the beat of music via ankle-worn sensors.  First the app calculates your gait, then it matches the beat of the music to your steps, and then it subtly increases the pace so you walk a bit faster.

You get a choice of music genres to choose from (let’s hear it for disco!), and you can use it when waking on sidewalks or on level trails in the woods.

Forty-five Parkies participated in trial runs of the product.  They found they fell less while walking (yay!), and the majority reported positive outcomes with the product:  “positive responses on usability items was much higher than with negative responses (60.5% vs. 10.8%).”

And fear of falling?  Greatly reduced.  “Fear of falling decreased and quality of life improved.”

Let’s jump to the article’s conclusion:

“BeatWalk is a new wearable application increasing ‘walk for exercise’ in a generally sedentary population.  The application deliver[s] music interactively synchronized to the patient’s gait and proved to be safe, well-tolerated, easy to use, and enjoyable.  BeatWalk appears as a very promising tool for implementing music technology solutions for health care in patients with movement disorders.”