A multiple sensor wireless data acquisition system to analyze gait in human beings

Abstract

<p>With a demographic increase in the geriatric population, there has been a steady rise in the number of morbidities and mortalities associated with falling. With an increased life expectancy and the active lifestyles in the elderly and emphasis in geriatric research is being laid on techniques to predict and analyze gait patterns, methods to identify diagnostic measures that act as reliable predictors for fall in the elderly. Correlating sensor outputs to body movements, determining gait variability between subjects belonging to different age brackets, studying the differences in muscle characteristics among the elderly and the young, studying the neural activity associated with motor nerves in the elderly and the young and relating it to activities of daily living are some of the topics that researches have conducted extensive studies on. There are many areas in the geriatric sphere that have still not been explored in depth and one of them being characteristics of a fall. In our study we have developed a system that reads the outputs of 3 gyroscope sensors mounted on a subject and transmits a multiplexed signal containing all three sensor outputs via Bluetooth to a base station. Designing the system, recording sensor output data using Mat lab, analyzing the data, determining the range of operation of the sensor, developing a user interface are some of the important goals we have met to make improvements to the existing system. Future development includes trials conducted on subjects in a clinical setup to determine behavior of the sensor towards induced falls.</p><p>This presentation occurred at the Wright State University Campus-Wide Celebration of Research, Scholarship and Creative Activities on April 16, 2010</p>