SCH: INT: Inferring at home gait parameters of older adults using floor vibrations

美国人口正在老龄化。目前迫切需要一种工具来更好地将卫生专业人员与患者联系起来，并以自动化的方式在家中进行评估。这项提案的长期目标是发现必要的知识，使一个永远在线、非侵入式、非穿戴式的智能系统能够利用地板振动自动估计家庭步态参数。为了实现这一愿景，该提案的目标是通过一个智能系统将健康专业人员与独立生活的老年人联系起来，该系统使用地板振动来估计步态参数。实现这一目标的目的是：1)确定家庭步态参数作为时间和空间的函数；2)基于步态参数建立老年人数字识别器；3)在考虑了时空相关性后，将居家步态参数的变化与居民幸福感的变化联系起来。通过验证以下假设，本研究将推动工程、物理治疗和公共卫生领域的最新进展：1)地板振动是一种自动、连续确定步态参数的可行方法；2)对于生活在独立家庭环境中的健康个体，步态参数将根据家中的位置、一天中的时间和一周中的哪一天保持一致；3)对于刚出院的患者，康复将与他们步态参数的改善相关。假设的检验将通过五个任务来完成：1)开发一个自动化系统来捕获地板振动并提取步态参数；2)在实验室环境下验证系统；3)在参与者家中收集数据；4)验证居家步态参数随时间和空间的一致性假设；5)检验步态参数改善与近期出院患者健康状况改善相关的假设。这项研究将由一组工程和物理治疗领域的跨学科研究人员在一位经验丰富的老年医生的支持下进行，并将推进信号处理技术、在家步态参数及其不确定性的估计和验证以及在家步态参数变化与健康状况变化之间的关系方面的知识。建议的活动将对老年人护理、研究界和下一代研究人员和工程师产生重大影响，因为：1)通过早期干预改善老年人的健康状况，降低医疗保健成本，从而降低再入院率；2)通过基准问题、跨学科研讨会、新课程和外展活动提高科学素养和公众参与度；3)培养能够解决跨学科问题的多元化融合研究人员，包括STEM领域中代表性不足的群体。

The United States population is growing older. There is an urgent need for tools to better connect health professionals with their patients and perform at-home assessments in an automated fashion. The long-term goal of this proposal is to discover the knowledge necessary to enable an always-on, non-intrusive, non-wearable smart system for automated at-home gait parameter estimation using floor vibrations. To achieve this vision, the proposal has the objective of connecting health professionals with older adults living independently through a smart system that estimates gait parameters using floor vibration. The aims to achieve this goal are to 1) determine at-home gait parameters as a function of time and space; 2) establish a digital identifier of the older adult based on gait parameters; and 3) correlate changes in at-home gait parameters, after considering spatial-temporal correlations, with changes in the well-being of the resident. The proposed research will advance the state-of-the-art in engineering, physical therapy and public health by testing the following hypotheses: 1) Floor vibration is a viable means to automatically and continuously determine gait parameters; 2) For healthy individuals living in an independent at-home setting, gait parameters will be consistent based on location in the home, time of the day and day of the week; and 3) For patients recently discharged from the hospital, recovery will correlate with improvements in their gait parameters. The testing of the hypotheses will be performed through five tasks: 1) Develop an automated system to capture floor vibration and extract gait parameters; 2) Validate the system in laboratory setting; 3) Collect data at participant’s homes; 4) Test the hypothesis that at-home gait parameters are consistent with time and space; 5) Test the hypothesis that improvement in gait parameters correlates improvement in health status of recently discharged patients. This research will be pursued by a group of interdisciplinary researchers in engineering and physical therapy with the support of an experienced geriatric physician and will advance the knowledge in signal processing techniques, estimation and validation of at-home gait parameters and their uncertainty, and relationship between changes at-home gait parameters and changes in health status. The proposed activities will have a significant impact on older adult care, the research community and the next generation of researchers and engineers stemming from: 1) improved health of older adults and reduced health care cost by early intervening and thus decreasing the readmission rate; 2) increased scientific literacy and public engagement through benchmark problems, interdisciplinary seminars, new courses and outreach activities; 3) the training of diverse convergence researchers competent in solving interdisciplinary problems, including underrepresented groups in STEM fields.