An Instrumented Walking Aid to Assess and Retrain Gait

Abstract

Abstract-An instrumented walking-aid, the iWA system, has been developed to measure kinematic and kinetic properties of walking aid (WA) use and deliver feedback to improve gait. The clinical requirements, technical specification and design of the system are developed through clinical collaboration. The development of the system is described, including hardware components and data analysis used to process the measured data for assessment. The system measurements are validated under controlled laboratory conditions. The iWA system is evaluated in a typical UK clinical environment by a participant in a rehabilitation session. The resultant data successfully capture the quality of the participant's walking aid use and agree with clinical opinion, supporting the efficacy of this approach.

A Multi-Sensor Cane Can Detect Changes in Gait Caused by Simulated Gait Abnormalities and Walking Terrains

“…Recent studies suggest that approximately 6.1 million community-dwelling American adults ambulate with the support of an AD to combat mobility impairments and mitigate instability [17]. This has led researchers to develop instrumented ADs to help monitor and categorize gait activity [16,18,19]. These works the presented mechanical design of instrumented canes equipped with IMUs and a load monitoring system intended to be used as diagnostic tools in physiotherapy clinics.…”

“…These works the presented mechanical design of instrumented canes equipped with IMUs and a load monitoring system intended to be used as diagnostic tools in physiotherapy clinics. The work presented in References [18,19] used load cells to measure axial loading information, whereas Wade et al [16] used force-sensing resistors incorporated into the cane handle and base to measure loading information. While these early works demonstrated the potential of this approach, limitations including cost, reliability, and lack of industrial design have prevented their successful deployment outside of training situations [14].…”

Design and implementation of an instrumented cane for gait recognition

“…Choi et al [16] distinguished falls from non-falls using inertial data collected from a belt worn around the waists of subjects. Lan et al [19] developed the SmartFall system for the SmartCane [22,23] Culmer et al [24] developed the iWA (instrumented walking aid) for the purpose of objective, quantitative clinical evaluation. They designed a custom load cell for the base of the cane to precisely measure axial load applied by the user.…”

Implementation of Machine Learning with an iPod Application Mounted to a Cane for Classifying Assistive Device Usage

“…Standard assistive devices lack the capacity to provide clinically relevant data and are generally limited to subjective and qualitative means for evaluation. 6 Instrumented sensors integrated with the cane, which would constitute a mechatronic device may improve the quantified diagnostic capacity of the cane while operated by the user.…”

“…The goal of the iWA is to collect clinically relevant data, which can assist future rehabilitation strategies, and provide temporal/kinetic data, such as usage time, distance of operation, applied load, and assistive device movement. 6 The appropriate selection of an assistive device should be conducted by an experienced therapist. 13 However, from a practical perspective the number of clinical visits may be a limiting factor.…”