Title
Identifying Fatigue Indicators Using Gait Variability Measures: A Longitudinal Study On Elderly Brisk Walking
Abstract
Real-time detection of fatigue in the elderly during physical exercises can help identify the stability and thus falling risks which are commonly achieved by the investigation of kinematic parameters. In this study, we aimed to identify the change in gait variability parameters from inertial measurement units (IMU) during a course of 60 min brisk walking which could lay the foundation for the development of fatigue-detecting wearable sensors. Eighteen elderly people were invited to participate in the brisk walking trials for 60 min with a single IMU attached to the posterior heel region of the dominant side. Nine sets of signals, including the accelerations, angular velocities, and rotation angles of the heel in three anatomical axes, were measured and extracted at the three walking times (baseline, 30th min, and 60th min) of the trial for analysis. Sixteen of eighteen participants reported fatigue after walking, and there were significant differences in the median acceleration (p = 0.001), variability of angular velocity (p = 0.025), and range of angle rotation (p = 0.0011), in the medial-lateral direction. In addition, there were also significant differences in the heel pronation angle (p = 0.005) and variability and energy consumption of the angles in the anterior-posterior axis (p = 0.028, p = 0.028), medial-lateral axis (p = 0.014, p = 0.014), and vertical axis (p = 0.002, p < 0.001). Our study demonstrated that a single IMU on the posterior heel of the dominant side can address the variability of kinematics parameters for elderly performing prolonged brisk walking and could serve as an indicator for walking instability, and thus fatigue.
Year
DOI
Venue
2020
10.3390/s20236983
SENSORS
Keywords
DocType
Volume
fatigue, brisk walking, kinematics, gait, inertial measurement unit
Journal
20
Issue
ISSN
Citations 
23
1424-8220
0
PageRank 
References 
Authors
0.34
0
10
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Guoxin Zhang100.34
Ivy Kwan-Kei Wong200.34
Tony Lin-Wei Chen300.34
Tommy Tung-Ho Hong400.34
Duo Wai-Chi Wong500.68
Yinghu Peng600.34
Fei Yan700.34
Yan Wang800.68
Qitao Tan900.68
Ming Zhang108918.62