An Instrumented Walking Aid to Assess and Retrain Gait

• Published in: IEEE/ASME transactions on mechatronics Vol. 19; no. 1; pp. 141 - 148
• Main Authors: Culmer, Peter R., Brooks, Peter C., Strauss, Daniella N., Ross, Denise H., Levesley, Martin C., O'Connor, Rory J., Bhakta, Bipin B.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York IEEE 01.02.2014; The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
• Subjects: Assembly; Assessments; Biomedical telemetry; Data processing; Effectiveness; Gait; Hardware; Instruments; Kalman filters; Legged locomotion; Loading; Mathematical model; medical information systems; Rehabilitation; rehabilitation robotics; Sensors; Specifications; Walking
• ISSN: 1083-4435; 1941-014X
• DOI: 10.1109/TMECH.2012.2223227

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 U.K. clinical environment by a participant in a rehabilitation session. The resultant data successfully capture the quality of the participant's WA use and agree with clinical opinion, supporting the efficacy of this approach.