Abstract
Since variations in common gait parameters (such as cadence, velocity and stride-length) of elderly people are a reliable indicator of functional and cognitive decline in aging and increased fall risks, such gait parameters have to be monitored continuously to enable preventive interventions as early as possible. With scanning laser rangefinders (SLR) having been shown to be suitable for standardised (frontal) gait assessments, this article introduces an unobtrusive gait monitoring (UGMO) system for lateral gait monitoring in homes for the elderly. The system has been evaluated in comparison to a GAITRite (as reference system) with 86 participants (ranging from 21 to 82 years) passing the 6-min walk test twice. Within the considered 56,351 steps within an overall 7877 walks and approximately 34 km distance travelled, it has been shown that the SLR Hokuyo UST10-LX is more sensitive than the cheaper URG-04LX version in regard to the correct (automatic) detection of lateral steps (98% compared to 77%) and walks (97% compared to 66%). Furthermore, it has been confirmed that the UGMO (with the SLR UST10-LX) can measure gait parameters such as gait velocity and stride length with sufficient sensitivity to determine age- and disease-related functional (and cognitive) decline.
Highlights
The prolongation of elderly people’s ability to remain independent in their common environments is an essential necessity to assure both a high quality of living for elderly people and well-functioning health-care systems
In regard to the influence of the scanning laser rangefinders (SLR) type, the SLR-10 achieves a much higher sensitivity in terms of the correct detection of steps (98% compared to 77%) and walks (97% compared to 66%) than the cheaper SLR-04, whose lower performance might have been affected by the sensors range, frequency and angular resolution characteristics
With the rate of correct positive detected walks by the SLR-10—as compared to the GAITRite acting as reference measure—the unobtrusive gait monitoring (UGMO) is well suited to act as monitoring device
Summary
The prolongation of elderly people’s ability to remain independent in their common environments is an essential necessity to assure both a high quality of living for elderly people and well-functioning health-care systems. The early detection of functional decline and a deep understanding of elderly people’s locomotion processes are both essential aspects for the prevention of falls, which are the leading cause of fatal injury and the most common cause of non-fatal trauma-related hospital admissions among older adults causing over $50 billion total medical costs in 2015 [1] and being critical for losing the ability for independent living due to the resulting potentially severe effects on patients’ physical and mental health [2,3,4,5,6]. Bridenbaugh proposed that stride speed and variability may be sensitive enough to track cognitive impairments [11]
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