Abstract
BackgroundMost hemiplegic patients have difficulties in their balance and posture control while walking because of the asymmetrical posture and the abnormal body balance. The assessment of rehabilitation of hemiplegic gait is usually made by doctors using clinical scale, but it is difficult and could not be used frequently. It is therefore needed to quantitatively analyze the characteristics of hemiplegic gait. Thus the assessment would be simple, and real-time evaluation of rehabilitation could be carried out.MethodsTwenty subjects (ten hemiplegic patients, ten normal subjects) were recruited. The subjects walked straight for five meters at their self-selected comfortable speed towards a target line on the floor.Xsens MTx motion trackers were used for acquiring gestures of body segments to estimate knee joint angles and identify gait cycles. A practical method for data acquisition that does not need to obtain accurate distances between a knee joint and its corresponding sensors is presented.ResultsThe results showed that there were significant differences between the two groups in the three nominated angle amplitudes. The mean values of balance level of each parameter in hemiplegic gait and normal gait were: 0.21 versus 0.01, 0.18 versus 0.03, and 0.92 versus 0.03, respectively. The mean values of added angles of each parameter in hemiplegic gait and normal gait were: 74.64 versus 91.31, -76.48 versus −132.4, and 6.77 versus 35.74.ConclusionsIt was concluded that the wearable bio-motion acquisition platform provided a practical approach that was effective in discriminating gait symptoms between hemiplegic and asymptomatic subjects. The extensibility of hemiplegic patients’ lower limbs was significantly lower than that of normal subjects, and the hemiplegic gait had worse balance level compared with normal gait. The effect of rehabilitation training of hemiplegic gait could be quantitatively analyzed.
Highlights
Most hemiplegic patients have difficulties in their balance and posture control while walking because of the asymmetrical posture and the abnormal body balance
The assessment of rehabilitation is usually made by doctors using clinical scale such as Brunnstrom, but this approach is difficult and could not be used frequently
We used wearable sensors and we used only the knee angle and gait cycle, which can be acquired from daily life movements, to describe the differences between hemiplegic patients and normal subjects and to reduce the difficulty of daily monitoring of patients
Summary
Most hemiplegic patients have difficulties in their balance and posture control while walking because of the asymmetrical posture and the abnormal body balance. The assessment of rehabilitation of hemiplegic gait is usually made by doctors using clinical scale, but it is difficult and could not be used frequently. It is needed to quantitatively analyze the characteristics of hemiplegic gait. Most hemiplegic patients have difficulties in posture control while walking because of the asymmetrical posture and the abnormal body balance, with reduced knee joint angle and abnormal gait. The assessment of rehabilitation is usually made by doctors using clinical scale such as Brunnstrom, but this approach is difficult and could not be used frequently. It is needed to quantitatively analyze the characteristics of hemiplegic gait, and find the relation between the characteristics and functional rehabilitation. The assessment would be simple, and real-time evaluation of rehabilitation could be carried out
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