
Gait evaluation is promising for detection of health outcomes and rehabilitation. Inertial Measurement Units (IMUs) can be easily worn and processed to gain insights into how people walk, both in the clinic and in the real world. The goal of this project is to develop new metrics of gait quality and to determine how those measures vary between the clinical, the home, and in public spaces. The current populations of interest are older adults, people with low vision, and patients with vestibular disorders. IMU data from past and ongoing studies are being used. The new measures will provide a unique opportunity to incorporate contextual information to improve our evaluation of free-living gait. With these data, we will better quantify gait quality in the clinic and free-living gait in varying contexts and over time to ultimately determine the impact of context and physical activity intervention. In addition, we plan to assess how these gait measures relate to longer term clinical outcomes (e.g. with Medicare claims data). The long-term goal is to improve evaluation of mobility through wearable technology.
People