Constellation, le dépôt institutionnel de l'Université du Québec à Chicoutimi

Résumé

Purpose

Several studies use force sensitive resistors (FSR) to compute gait and balance parameters related to falls without investigating the number of sensor units required to produce useful information. We propose a model with minimal sensors for an instrumented insole by investigating and optimizing the location and variety of sensors required to efficiently detect people at risk of falling.

Methods

Datasets previously recorded on twelve Parkinson’s disease (PD) participants (67.7 ± 10.07 years), nine healthy elderly (66.8 ± 8.0 years) and ten young healthy adults (28.27 ± 3.74 years) were used in this study. We compared the datasets obtained from the use of four FSRs with those of three, two, one and no FSR; each set was combined with an inertial measurement unit (IMU).

Results

During the walking activity, the risk of falling scores from four FSRs and IMU (acceleration in y-axis only) were not significantly different compared with two FSRs and IMU (p > 0.05), whereas significant difference was found for three FSRs and IMU and one FSR and IMU (p < 0.001) in the elderly population. During sit-to-stand and stand-to-sit activities, the risk scores from four FSRs were not significantly different compared with three FSRs (p > 0.05).

Conclusions

We concluded that it is feasible to estimate the risk index after reducing the number of sensing units from four to two FSRs during walking test and from four to three FSRs during sit-to-stand and stand-to-sit tests. The FSRs should be placed at strategic positions to avoid information loss.