Gaitprints as Predictors of Disease and Disability for Effective Rehabilitation Engineering

经过几十年的人体运动研究，关于人体步态仍有许多未知数。最具挑战性和最有趣的未知数之一与以下基础研究问题有关：是否存在与人类步态相关的特征，这些特征与指纹一样，对每个人来说都是独一无二的？这个项目通过关注这样一个事实来阐明这个问题，即尽管相似，但人类采取的两个步骤并不相同。人类行走表现出的这种自然变化特征可以揭示有关人类福祉的关键信息。此外，在步态变异性的透镜下对人类步态特征的独特性的研究可以用于预测疾病和生理衰退以及改善康复。通过该项目获得的知识将被纳入大学课程，并将为K-12学生提供暑期实习职位，以便学生获得未来STEM本科学习的重要技能。该项目的主要目标是调查每个人是否表现出独特的“步态”（即，每个人的步态表现出独特的特征/性质），其方式与每个人具有独特的指纹相同。将通过在不同环境（室内和室外）下进行的一系列生物力学实验来探索和识别可能构成步态纹的特征，其中将从属于健康人群和疾病和残疾人群的研究参与者中收集步态数据。收集到的数据将通过新的技术进行统计分析，并将调查步态纹的独特性和持久性相关的属性的存在。这个项目的变革性在于它专注于人类步态变异模式，作为调查步态纹存在的关键因素。通过跨学科调查小组的参与，该项目由残疾和康复工程（DARE）计划和刺激竞争研究（EPSCoR）计划共同资助，预计将获得基础知识，使步态纹能够作为衰老和病理学的潜在预测因子该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

After decades of human movement research, there are still many unknowns about human gait. One of the most challenging and intriguing unknowns is related to the following fundamental research question: are there characteristics as­sociated with human gait that are unique to each individual in the same manner as fingerprints? This project sheds light into this question by focusing on the fact that, despite being similar, no two steps that humans take are identical. This natural feature of variability that human walking exhibits can reveal critical information about human well-being. In addition, the investigation of the uniqueness of human gait characteristics under the lens of gait variability can be utilized to predict disease and physiological decline and improve rehabilitation. The knowledge gained through this project will be incorporated into university course curriculum and summer internship positions will be made available for K-12 students, so that students acquire vital skills for their prospective undergraduate studies in STEM.The main goal of this project is to investigate whether each individual exhibits a unique “gaitprint” (i.e., each individual’s gait exhibits unique characteristics/properties) in the same fashion that each individual has unique fingerprints. The characteristics that may constitute a gaitprint will be explored and identified through a series of biomechanical experiments under different settings (indoors and outdoors), where gait data will be collected from research participants that belong to both healthy populations and populations with disease and disability. The collected data will be statistically analyzed through novel techniques and the existence of properties related to gaitprint uniqueness and persistence will be investigated. The transformative nature of this project lies in its focus on human gait variability patterns as the key element for the investigation of the gaitprint existence. Through the involvement of an interdisciplinary team of investigators, this project is expected to result in fundamental knowledge that will enable the use of gaitprints as a potential predictor of aging and pathology.This project is jointly funded by the Disability and Rehabilitation Engineering (DARE) Program and the Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR).This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.