[Purpose] The purpose of this study was to determine the change of allocation of attention caused by a difference in gait phase and gait speed. We also determined the relationship between attentional demand and gait automaticity change caused by the gait speed alteration. [Subjects and Methods] Ten male participated. Participants were instructed to perform the probe reaction time (RT) task duri...

The effects of hypertension are chronic and continuous; it affects gait, balance, and fall risk. Therefore, it is desirable to assess gait health across hypertensive and nonhypertensive subjects in order to prevent or reduce the risk of falls. Analysis of electromyography (EMG) signals can identify age related changes of neuromuscular activation due to various neuropathies and myopathies, but i...

Background: Chronic subdural hematoma (CSDH) is often found in the elderly owing to slight head trauma and is associated with several neurological disorders. Neurological deficits are cured by a simple surgical removal of the hematoma; however, these deficits persist if there is insufficient hematoma removal. It is rare for patients to continue having neurological disorders once the hematoma is...

[Purpose] Gait velocity and trunk acceleration during semicircular turning gait with and without carrying a hand-held bag were compared in females of very advanced age. [Subjects and Methods] Ten female volunteers of very advanced age who could walk independently were recruited for this study. Gait velocity and trunk acceleration were measured using an accelerometer during semicircular turning ...

This study explored the potential utility of gait analysis using a single sensor unit (inertial measurement unit [IMU]) as a simple tool to detect peripheral neuropathy in people with diabetes. Seventeen people (14 men) aged 63±9 years (mean±SD) with diabetic peripheral neuropathy performed a 10-m walk test instrumented with an IMU on the lower back. Compared to a reference healthy control data...

In many cases, a target or a structure on a target may have micro-motions, such as vibrations or rotations. Micro-motions of structures on a target may introduce frequency modulation on the returned radar signal and generate sidebands on the Doppler frequency shift of the target’s body. The modulation due to micro-motion is called the micro-Doppler (m-D) phenomenon. In this paper, we present an...

Accumulated signal noise will cause the integrated values to drift from the true value when measuring orientation angles of wearable sensors. This work proposes a novel method to reduce the effect of this drift to accurately measure human gait using wearable sensors. Firstly, an infinite impulse response (IIR) digital 4th order Butterworth filter was implemented to remove the noise from the raw...

The objective of this study was to determine if electrocortical activity is different between walking on an incline compared with level surface. Subjects walked on a treadmill at 0% and 15% grades for 30 min while we recorded electroencephalography (EEG). We used independent component (IC) analysis to parse EEG signals into maximally independent sources and then computed dipole estimations for ...

BACKGROUND In adults, walking economy declines with increasing age and negatively influences walking speed. This study aims at detecting determinants of walking economy from body acceleration during walking in an ageing population. METHODS 35 healthy elderly (18 males, age 51 to 83 y, BMI 25.5±2.4 kg/m2) walked on a treadmill. Energy expenditure was measured with indirect calorimetry while bo...

Walking is an automated rythmic motor behavior that is mostly controlled by subcortical brain regions. Automaticity implies that gait can be performed without attention. However, recent works highlight the involvement of attentional resources in gait, using a "dual-task" methodology in which performance on attention-demanding tasks such as spoken verbal response and walking is compared when the...