Calibration-Free Gait Assessment by Foot-Worn Inertial Sensors

Laidig D, Jocham AJ, Guggenberger B, Adamer K, Fischer M, Seel T (2021)

Publication Type: Journal article

Publication year: 2021

Journal

Frontiers in Digital Health Frontiers Media

Book Volume: 3

Article Number: 736418

DOI: 10.3389/fdgth.2021.736418

Abstract

Walking is a central activity of daily life, and there is an increasing demand for objective measurement-based gait assessment. In contrast to stationary systems, wearable inertial measurement units (IMUs) have the potential to enable non-restrictive and accurate gait assessment in daily life. We propose a set of algorithms that uses the measurements of two foot-worn IMUs to determine major spatiotemporal gait parameters that are essential for clinical gait assessment: durations of five gait phases for each side as well as stride length, walking speed, and cadence. Compared to many existing methods, the proposed algorithms neither require magnetometers nor a precise mounting of the sensor or dedicated calibration movements. They are therefore suitable for unsupervised use by non-experts in indoor as well as outdoor environments. While previously proposed methods are rarely validated in pathological gait, we evaluate the accuracy of the proposed algorithms on a very broad dataset consisting of 215 trials and three different subject groups walking on a treadmill: healthy subjects (n = 39), walking at three different speeds, as well as orthopedic (n = 62) and neurological (n = 36) patients, walking at a self-selected speed. The results show a very strong correlation of all gait parameters (Pearson's r between 0.83 and 0.99, p < 0.01) between the IMU system and the reference system. The mean absolute difference (MAD) is 1.4 % for the gait phase durations, 1.7 cm for the stride length, 0.04 km/h for the walking speed, and 0.7 steps/min for the cadence. We show that the proposed methods achieve high accuracy not only for a large range of walking speeds but also in pathological gait as it occurs in orthopedic and neurological diseases. In contrast to all previous research, we present calibration-free methods for the estimation of gait phases and spatiotemporal parameters and validate them in a large number of patients with different pathologies. The proposed methods lay the foundation for ubiquitous unsupervised gait assessment in daily-life environments.

Authors with CRIS profile

Thomas Seel Professur für Intelligente Sensomotorische Systeme

Involved external institutions

Technische Universität Berlin DE Germany (DE) Universities of Applied Sciences Joanneum / FH Joanneum AT Austria (AT) VAMED Gesundheit Holding Deutschland GmbH DE Germany (DE)

How to cite

APA:

Laidig, D., Jocham, A.J., Guggenberger, B., Adamer, K., Fischer, M., & Seel, T. (2021). Calibration-Free Gait Assessment by Foot-Worn Inertial Sensors. Frontiers in Digital Health, 3. https://doi.org/10.3389/fdgth.2021.736418

MLA:

Laidig, Daniel, et al. "Calibration-Free Gait Assessment by Foot-Worn Inertial Sensors." Frontiers in Digital Health 3 (2021).

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