Communications of the ACM
Firefighters' Positioning System May Be sed to Monitor Walking Difficulty For Elderly
Researchers at the KTH Royal Institute of Technology have fine-tuned a positioning system used in fire rescue operations to collect data on individuals' foot movements.
Credit: University of California, Irvine Center for Observational and Environmental Health
Researchers at the KTH Royal Institute of Technology have fine-tuned a positioning system used in fire rescue operations to collect data on people's foot movements.
By examining how forces are distributed in the foot, clinicians could potentially identify such problems as early-stage Parkinson's, says KTH professor Peter Handel.
Researchers in Sweden will work with a group of senior citizens in September to test the system. "This kind of information could also allow caregivers to predict when people should start using mobility aids--before further problems arise," Handel says.
The system, consisting of an accelerometer, gyroscope, and processor, is placed in the shoe using special insoles to measure the movement of the foot and directional changes, whether the user walks, runs, jumps, or crawls, according to Handel.
Other potential uses for the technology include behavioral research and sports, in which athletes could use positioning technology to measure their own movements and analyze whether these can be optimized to improve performance or to reduce damage.
The Open Shoe Project started as a joint collaboration between KTH and the Indian Institute of Science, and it is now run within Seamless Affordable Assistive Technology for Health, an Indo-Swedish project with KTH, University of Gavle, Robotdalen, and Brepus Castel as Swedish partners and the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur and the Indian Institute of Science Bangalore as Indian partners.
From KTH Royal Institute of Technology
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