A Quantitative Gait Assessment Approach Using a Wearable Device and Its Validation for Different Neurological Disorder Conditions

Abstract

Improving independent mobility in people with various gait abnormalities is a major goal of rehabilitation therapy. While quantitative gait assessment is crucial to provide meaningful feedback on each treatment, many gait wearables have been validated with the standard method. However, none of the studies focused on validation of gait characterization in different classes of the pathological population compared with the control population. Hence, a novel wearable device called Gait Watch, worn on both the lower limbs, to estimate spatiotemporal and kinematic parameters of heterogeneous gait-impaired groups has been evaluated and its outcomes have been statistically analyzed. This article presents a statistical validation of gait dynamics of the control group and patients diagnosed with cerebral vascular accident, traumatic brain injury, peripheral nervous system, psychiatric issues, and seizures. Using the preliminary analysis results, a set of descriptive variables that allow for disease differentiation was selected to provide appropriate treatment to patients with various ailments and enhance their gait quality. The extraction of clinically significant gait parameters of interest using proposed Gait Watch would ascertain various neurological conditions as well as accurately quantify the extent of the difference in various gait parameters in subjects with different gait conditions when compared with the control group.