Assessment of Gait Symmetry and Gait Normality Using Inertial Sensors: In-Lab and In-Situ Evaluation - Biomedical Engineering Systems and Technologies - page 228

measures makes the assessment of patient improvement a difficult and very subjective
task. The introduction of a simple 10-meter walk test can already provide quantitative
measures of speed and stride length. The addition of a wearable GA system, however,
can quickly increase the amount of quantitative data to include more complex measures
of symmetry and normality.

6 Conclusions

The present study investigated the use of inertial sensors for quantitative GA, both in-lab
and in-situ. The proposed system served as a tool to facilitate the extraction of certain
gait characteristics, namely symmetry and normality. The system was evaluated against
3D kinematic measures of symmetry and normality, as well as clinical assessments of
hip-replacement patients. Not only was the proposed system in agreement with kine-
matic variables but it also correlated well with the level of recovery and health status
of the patients in a very intuitive way. This study showed that such a system may be
deployed in a real clinical environment in order to aid current clinical assessment by
incorporating quantitative GA.

Acknowledgements. This study was partially funded by the Promobilia Foundation.
The authors would like to thank Lars-Eric Olsson, PhD, for including the present study
in his project, funded by the Institute of Health and Care Sciences, Sahlgrenska
Academy, University of Gothenburg, Sweden.

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