Gaitprints as Predictors of Disease and Disability for Effective Rehabilitation Engineering

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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.