Gait diagnosis through floor vibrations
Rodrigo Sarlo and Rafael Gonçalves
Frailty is characterized by the functional decline of various physiological systems and is strongly associated with an increased vulnerability to stressors, such as illnesses or surgical procedures. Risk of frailty increase as we age. However, due to its complex influences, identifying frailty is challenging. Common methods, often based on surveys or visual observations, can vary by as much as 4 to 59% for similar populations of older adults. Recent research on older adults suggest that gait can serve as a predictor of frailty and associated adverse outcomes, such as reduced mobility, functional dependence, and mortality. In this presentation, we describe our efforts to build deployable, sensor-based techniques for monitoring several dimensions of gait. These techniques are passive, as they do not monitor the patient directly. This design is intended to create less privacy and intrusion concerns for older adults, thus improving the potential for adoption.