Gait quantification through accelerometers and clinical tests: application to pathological gait

Gait gives essential information to physiotherapists in the screening and follow-up of their patients suffering from orthopaedic, geriatric or neurologic diseases. Most of time, clinical practitioners rely on visual observation of their patients during specific clinical tests that can highlight gait abnormalities (e,g., the Tinetti assessment tool, the timed up and go test, the 6 minutes walking test), but these tests provide little quantified information about gait. These rough methods are also limited by inter-rater subjectivity and lack of acuteness in the detection of subtle impairments.
On the other hand, instrumented gait analyses offer a sharper investigation with the ability to record and quantify gait events that cannot be caught at simple visual observation. Unfortunately, cutting edge technologies often pay the price of a limited number of strides extracted, the need of a strictly controlled laboratory environment, development and maintenance by a specialized staff. For these reasons, instrumented gait analysis may stand beyond the financial and technical reach of many rehabilitative centres and private practitioners.
Accelerometer technologies have considerably developed with the progress of wireless technologies. These lightweight and low-cost sensors allow quantified gait analyses that are not restricted to a laboratory environment but can also be used in medical offices and in combination with common clinical gait tests.
This presentation relates the experiences of our departments with accelerometer systems and clinical testing in gait analysis of patients suffering from Parkinson’s disease. The aim of this intervention is to cross ideas and knowledge of clinical practitioners and engineers in the development a new gait analysis tool that could integrate routine evaluation of patients suffering from Parkinson’s disease and other conditions characterized by gait impairments.