An Unobtrusive, Multi-individual Gait Monitor

简介（由申请人提供）：我们会发展一项工具，以改善长者社区中最体弱人士的医疗服务。这个人口;住在家中或在延伸护理机构的老年人或康复患者过于虚弱，无法离开这种环境，因此，他们的身体活动大大减少。尽管许多研究已经证实，持续监测每日能量消耗和步幅时间变化将是监测老年人活力和减少跌倒的有力工具，但受试者依从性（让人们持续佩戴监测设备）已被证明是有问题的。该项目的目标是提供一个远程无人值守监控系统，该系统可以同时识别、记录和分析多个个体的足迹模式。不需要依赖受试者的能力或依从性，该工具将量化那些因健康状况将其生活环境限制在家中或护理单位的个人的每日能量消耗总量。该系统还将提供这些和更多自由漫游个体的时间步态参数，包括步态变异性。测量每天因步行而消耗的总能量，可以了解每个人每天的活动水平。这些水平的变化预示着变化

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): We will develop an instrument to improve the healthcare of the most frail members of the elderly community. This population; elderly or recovering patients living at home or in an extended care facility is too frail to leave this environment and, as such, is subject to significantly reduced physical activity. Although numerous studies have confirmed that continuous monitoring of daily energy expenditure and stride time variability would be a powerful tool in the effort to monitor vitality and to reduce fals among the elderly, subject compliance (getting people to consistently wear a monitoring device) has proven to be problematic. The objective of this program is to provide a remote, unattended monitoring system that identifies, records, and analyzes footstep patterns of multiple individuals simultaneously. Without the need to rely on subject abilities or compliance, this tool will quantif the total daily level of energy expenditure of individuals whose health limits their living environment to their home or to a nursing care unit. Temporal gait parameters, including gait variability, of these and more free-roaming individuals would also be made available by this system. Measurement of total daily energy expenditure due to walking will provide a view of each individual's day-to- day levels of activity. Changes in these levels are indicative of changes in health status while the gait variability measurements will provide an assessment of each individual's risk of falling. In summary we are proposing a shift in the monitoring of gait. By usig non-contact sensors and multi- individual recognition techniques, our system is unique in its ability to perform such monitoring without the need for subject compliance. Simultaneous data from multiple individuals will be parsed according to the specific walkers generating each gait sequence. Long-term, free-living monitoring, performed in the care facility or at the subject's home will provide early warning of decreasing health, fall risk estimations and objective measures of change as a result of medical intervention. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: It has been demonstrated that the monitoring of gait in elderly individuals can provide valuable information regarding the overall health status and the likelihood for falling of these individuals. Unfortunately current approaches for effective, long-term monitoring require a high degree of subject compliance. We will develop and validate a gait monitoring system requiring minimal subject compliance. Successful completion of this program will greatly improve the likelihood of early, effective intervention in the care of the elderly including those among the most frail of this population.