Abstract
This study aims to measure and compare spatiotemporal gait parameters in nineteen subjects using a full wearable inertial mocap system Xsens (MVN Awinda, Netherlands) and a photoelectronic system one-meter OptoGaitTM (Microgait, Italy) on a treadmill imposing a walking speed of 5 km/h. A total of eleven steps were considered for each subject constituting a dataset of 209 samples from which spatiotemporal parameters (SPT) were calculated. The step length measurement was determined using two methods. The first one considers the calculation of step length based on the inverted pendulum model, while the second considers an anthropometric approach that correlates the stature with an anthropometric coefficient. Although the absolute agreement and consistency were found for the calculation of the stance phase, cadence and gait cycle, from our study, differences in SPT were found between the two systems. Mean square error (MSE) calculation of their speed (m/s) with respect to the imposed speed on a treadmill reveals a smaller error (MSE = 0.0008) using the OptoGaitTM. Overall, our results indicate that the accurate detection of heel strike and toe-off have an influence on phases and sub-phases for the entire acquisition. Future study in this domain should investigate how to design and integrate better products and algorithms aiming to solve the problematic issues already identified in this study without limiting the user’s need and performance in a different environment.
Highlights
Gait is the main activity of human beings and corresponds to their physiological path of movement [1]
mean square errors (MSE) calculation with respect to the imposed speed of 5 km/h shows a smaller error (MSE = 0.0008 m/s) using the OptoGaitTM. This system proved to not be accurate on the calculation of the gait phases such as time and percentage of the stance phase and their sub-phases, agreement and consistency were found between the two systems for the calculation of the stance phase, cadence ad gait cycle
An incorrect detection of toe-off and heel strike in OptoGaitTM caused by LEDs and the system design and integration and interaction with the treadmill can cause a systematic difference in phases and sub-phases
Summary
Gait is the main activity of human beings and corresponds to their physiological path of movement [1]. Gait is characterized by the walking cycle that is a representation of the succession of body movements. One gait cycle (100% time) is divided in two phases: the stance phase (60% of the cycle) and the swing phase (40% of the cycle) [9,10]. These two phases are divided into several sub-phases. The stance phase (60% of the gait cycle) is successively divided into four sub-phases: the loading response (0–10%), the mid-stance (10–30%), the terminal stance (30–50%) and the pre-swing (50–60%) [9,10]. Spatial parameters are the step length (right heel to left heel), step width (medio-lateral distance between two heel strikes) and the stride length (right heel to right heel), while the temporal parameters are the cadence (number of step per minute), speed, step and stride time, time and duration of phases and sub-phases [9,10]
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