Abstract
Wearable sensors are becoming increasingly popular for complementing classical clinical assessments of gait deficits. The aim of this review is to examine the existing knowledge by systematically reviewing a large number of papers focusing on the use of wearable inertial sensors for the assessment of gait during the 6-minute walk test (6MWT), a widely recognized, simple, non-invasive, low-cost and reproducible exercise test. After a systematic search on PubMed and Scopus databases, two raters evaluated the quality of 28 full-text articles. Then, the available knowledge was summarized regarding study design, subjects enrolled (number of patients and pathological condition, if any, age, male/female ratio), sensor characteristics (type, number, sampling frequency, range) and body placement, 6MWT protocol and extracted parameters. Results were critically discussed to suggest future directions for the use of inertial sensor devices in the clinics.
Highlights
The 6-minute walk test (6MWT) is a simple, non-invasive, low-cost and reproducible exercise test used to evaluate endurance during self-paced, submaximal walk by measuring the distance walked within 6 minutes (6MWD) along a flat, straight course with a hard surface [1]
A total of 232 articles were excluded after applying the exclusion criteria because they: (i) did not use a wearable inertial sensor during the 6MWT (168 papers); (ii) were an abstract and/or were conference proceedings (15 papers); (iii) were a review article or a case study (12 papers); (iv) were a study protocol (10 papers); (v) were not written in English (3 papers); (vi) were not ranked on Thomson Reuters (4 papers); or (vii) were published before 2010 (20 papers)
The remaining 28 articles were reviewed in full-text form and were all included in the systematic review after quality assessment
Summary
The 6-minute walk test (6MWT) is a simple, non-invasive, low-cost and reproducible exercise test used to evaluate endurance during self-paced, submaximal walk by measuring the distance walked within 6 minutes (6MWD) along a flat, straight course with a hard surface [1]. A major limitation of the traditional 6MWT is that the only standardized outcome measure is the 6MWD, which does not take into account additional subject-specific factors such as gait length and width or body posture. Standard 6MWT performed in the clinics do not consider the granularity of overall gait patterns or body segment kinematics, and gait parameters are not commonly measured during the test. It involves costs and some practical limitations such as the need for a dedicated space in the hospital and healthcare personnel to observe the test and to note down the measurements
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