Presentation
Monitoring Reactive Stepping Incidences with Integrated Floor Vibration Sensors for Smart, Realtime Fall Risk Assessments
SessionPoster Session 2
DescriptionFloor vibration technologies have recently emerged as a potential approach for accurately detecting subtle temporal characteristics in footstep-induced floor vibrations that are associated with changes in gait patterns. The temporal characteristics of normal voluntary footsteps during normal gait differ significantly from those observed when attempting to recover from a loss of balance. The ability to effectively detect these reactive balance steps remotely using floor vibration sensors could provide healthcare professionals with critical information on ‘near-miss’ events, potentially preventing serious falls. The purpose of this exploratory pilot research was to determine the feasibility of using in-floor-mounted vibration sensors to differentiate between volitional walking and balance recovery steps in a commercial building. The footstep floor vibration temporal characteristics of one healthy 26-year-old male during self-selected normal and fast walking paces were compared to those induced by backward reactive balance steps. Vibration characteristics were compared with foot durations calculated from video data. The preliminary findings reveal clear differences in step duration between reactive and volitional stepping, which were accurately detected by the vibration sensors (average error: 2.67%). These findings clearly show promising potential for vibrational signatures to detect reactive stepping, warranting further research.
Contributors
Event Type
Poster
TimeWednesday, October 15th5:30pm - 6:30pm CDT
LocationRiverside East