Real-Time Identification of Impaired Gait Phases Using a Single Foot-Mounted Inertial Sensor: Review and Feasibility Study

Abstract

Contextualization: Identification of gait events is a key step towards enhancing control of robotic devices for rehabilitation and/or assistance of lower limb function. -Gap: Several approaches and techniques that can properly identify gait events and phases have been developed and successfully tested in healthy subjects, but current algorithms had limited success for impaired gait. -Purpose: Here we studied the feasibility of real-time identification of gait phases for impaired subjects using a single inertial sensor on the paretic foot. - Methodology: We carried out a pilot experiment evaluating seven algorithms proposed in the literature for detection of two main events (heel-strike [HS] and toe-off [TO]) for normal and hemiparetic gait. -Results: We obtained a high performance for healthy gait indicating their suitability for real-time implementation for that population. However, we obtained a lower accuracy for all the algorithms during hemiparetic-like gait. -Conclusions: We performed a comprehensive review of the literature and evaluated the current algorithms in gait segmentation using a single inertial sensor on foot or shank for both healthy and paretic gait. Existing algorithms worked as expected in healthy but not paretic gait.