Reproducibility of “BUDA” multisensor system for gait analysis

Abstract

Gait analysis is important element in therapy and rehabilitation of hemiplegic individuals. We developed a simple, portable sensor system, which can be used for recording of gait signals, as well as for estimation of important gait parameters like joint angles, ground reaction forces, and various temporal parameters. In order to assess robustness of the system in everyday use in different environmental conditions and to see how it reacts to atypical gait patterns, we recorded signals from five healthy and five hemiplegic subjects, repeating the experiment on several consecutive days. We compared angles between adjacent leg segments and used Pearson's correlation coefficient as a measure of similarity. We obtained a high correlation for healthy persons, and a notably smaller correlation for hemiplegics.