Multidimensional Mobility Metric for Continuous Gait Monitoring using a Single Accelerometer

Mobility has been measured in the form of gait analysis – a method used to assess the physical functioning of a human. Many health-related clinical and pathological gait analysis applications have been proposed in the last decades. Gait analysis research has been predominantly conducted in laboratories in a discipline-specific manner. The main measurement approach is to monitor intrinsic gait patterns in natural settings such as home or work. Our proposed mobility assessment approach is to assess gait along three major gait dimensions: intensity, symmetry, and variability. This multidimensional metric uses a single accelerometer to assess the three dimensions so that the gait metric is continuously applied to mimic the natural human gait in daily life. Initial experimental results demonstrate its practical use in different gait patterns with various gait speeds.