The Kite Research Institute, Toronto Rehabilitation Institute-University Health Network, Toronto, ON M5G 2A2, Canada.
Institute of Biomedical Engineering, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON M5S 3G9, Canada.
Sensors (Basel). 2021 Nov 26;21(23):7891. doi: 10.3390/s21237891.
Trip-related falls are one of the major causes of injury among seniors in Canada and can be attributable to an inadequate Minimum Toe Clearance (MTC). Currently, motion capture systems are the gold standard for measuring MTC; however, they are expensive and have a restricted operating area. In this paper, a novel wearable system is proposed that can estimate different foot clearance parameters accurately using only two Time-of-Flight (ToF) sensors located at the toe and heel of the shoe. A small-scale preliminary study was conducted to investigate the feasibility of foot clearance estimation using the proposed wearable system. We recruited ten young, healthy females to walk at three self-selected speeds (normal, slow, and fast) while wearing the system. Our data analysis showed an average correlation coefficient of 0.94, 0.94, 0.92 for the normal, slow, and fast speed, respectively, when comparing the ToF signals with motion capture. The ANOVA analysis confirmed these results further by revealing no statistically significant differences between the ToF signals and motion capture data for most of the gait parameters after applying the newly proposed foot angle and offset compensation. In addition, the proposed system can measure the MTC with an average Mean Error (ME) of -0.08 ± 3.69 mm, -0.12 ± 4.25 mm, and -0.10 ± 6.57 mm for normal, slow, and fast walking speeds, respectively. The proposed affordable wearable system has the potential to perform real-time MTC estimation and contribute to future work focused on minimizing tripping risks.
旅行相关的跌倒事件是加拿大老年人受伤的主要原因之一,这可能与最小脚趾间隙(MTC)不足有关。目前,运动捕捉系统是测量 MTC 的黄金标准;然而,它们价格昂贵,且操作区域有限。在本文中,提出了一种新颖的可穿戴系统,该系统仅使用位于鞋的脚趾和脚跟处的两个飞行时间(ToF)传感器即可准确估计不同的足间隙参数。进行了一项小规模的初步研究,以调查使用所提出的可穿戴系统进行足间隙估计的可行性。我们招募了 10 名年轻、健康的女性,让她们以三种自选速度(正常、慢和快)穿着系统行走。我们的数据分析显示,当将 ToF 信号与运动捕捉进行比较时,正常、慢和快速度的平均相关系数分别为 0.94、0.94 和 0.92。方差分析进一步证实了这些结果,即在应用新提出的足角度和偏移补偿后,大多数步态参数的 ToF 信号与运动捕捉数据之间没有统计学上的显著差异。此外,该系统可以测量 MTC,平均平均误差(ME)分别为-0.08±3.69mm、-0.12±4.25mm 和-0.10±6.57mm,用于正常、慢和快行走速度。该经济实惠的可穿戴系统具有实时 MTC 估计的潜力,并为未来致力于降低绊倒风险的工作做出贡献。