Ambulatory Gait Analysis Using Gyroscopes

Recently, technical progress has made possible to realize miniature kinematic sensors such as accelerometers and angular rate sensors (Sparks et al. 1998). These sensors can be battery powered and are promising tools for ambulatory gait monitoring and analysis. The possibility to detect simple parameters such as steps and cycle time from trunk or heel acceleration has already been demonstrated (Aminian et al, 1995). Gait analysis using gyroscope has proved to be an other alternative technique for gait analysis (Tong and Granat, 1999). Unlike the accelerometer, the gyroscope can be attached anywhere to a body segment since the angular rotation is still the same along the segment. However no clear correspondence has been established between gait events and the patterns of angular velocity. In this study we describe an ambulatory system for temporal parameters estimation using gyroscopes. The accuracy of the measurement was assessed using as criterion standard the information provided by footswitches. To show the effectiveness of the method in a wide range of walking performance, gait parameters were obtained from young and old subjects.