Neural correlates and gait characteristics for hypoxic-ischemic brain injury induced freezing of gait

A Low-Cost Three-Axis Force Sensor for Wearable Gait Analysis Systems

This paper presents the design, analysis, and fabrication of a capacitive-based three-axis force sensor as the building block of a wearable sensing system to directly measure all the components of three-dimensional (3D) ground reaction forces (3D GRFs) during walking. The proposed sensor is low-cost and easy to fabricate with high accuracy, which promotes its accessibility and usability for gait analysis in clinical and research settings. The sensor is comprised of only three parallel capacitors that enable three-axial force measurement while significantly reducing the complexity of fabrication and maintenance prevalent in three-axis force sensors. Comprehensive experiments were conducted to rigorously quantify different aspects of the sensor's performance. The static and dynamic errors along the three axes are less than 2.28%, which is well within the acceptable range for the intended application. The force sensor can decouple three-axial forces with a cross-sensitivity of less than 2%. The developed sensor also demonstrates desirable repeatability and hysteresis behaviors with almost no drift over long periods of usage.

Gait analysis in neurological populations: Progression in the use of wearables

Gait assessment is an essential tool for clinical applications not only to diagnose different neurological conditions but also to monitor disease progression as it contributes to the understanding of underlying deficits. There are established methods and models for data collection and interpretation of gait assessment within different pathologies. This narrative review aims to depict the evolution of gait assessment from observation and rating scales to wearable sensors and laboratory technologies and provide limitations and possible future directions in the field of gait assessment. In this context, we first present an extensive review of current clinical outcomes and gait models. Then, we demonstrate commercially available wearable technologies with their technical capabilities along with their use in gait assessment studies for various neurological conditions. In the next sections, a descriptive knowledge for existing inertial and EMG based algorithms and a sign based guide that shows the outcomes of previous neurological gait assessment studies are presented. Finally, we state a discussion for the use of wearables in gait assessment and speculate the possible research directions by revealing the limitations and knowledge gaps in the literature.