Towards Body Sensor Network Based Gait Abnormality Evaluation for Stroke Survivors

Due to the technological advances of micro-electro-mechanical sensor and wireless sensor network, gait analysis has been widely adopted as an significant indicator of mobility impairment for stroke survivors. This paper aims to propose an wearable computing based gait impairment evaluation method with distribute inertial sensor unit (IMU) mounted on human lower limbs. Temporal-spacial gait metrics were evaluated on more than twenty post stroke patients and ten healthy control subjects in the 10-meters-walk-test. Experimental results shown that significant differences exist between stroke patients and healthy subject in terms of various gait metrics. The extracted gait metrics are consistent with clinical observations, and the position estimation accuracy has been validated by optical device. The proposed method has the potential to serve as an objective and cost-efficient tool for rehabilitation-assisting therapy for post stroke survivors in clinical practice.