Citation

Gonabadi AM, Antonellis P, Malcolm P. Acta Bioeng. Biomech. 2021; 23(2): 139-145.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2021, Oficyna Wydawnicza Politechniki Wrocławskiej)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

34846047

PMCID

PMC8634663

Abstract

PURPOSE: Falls are one of the main causes of injuries in older adults. This study evaluated a low-cost footswitch device that was designed to measure gait variability and investigates whether there are any relationships between variability metrics and clinical balance tests for individuals with a history of previous falls.

METHODS: Sixteen older adults completed a history of falls questionnaire, three functional tests related to fall risk, and walked on a treadmill with the footswitch device. We extracted the stride times from the device and applied two nonlinear variability analyses: coefficient of variation and detrended fluctuation analysis.

RESULTS: The temporal variables and variability metrics from the footswitch device correlated with gold-standard measurements based on ground reaction force data. One variability metric (detrended fluctuation analysis) showed a significant relationship with the presence of past falls with a sensitivity of 43%.

CONCLUSION: This feasibility study demonstrates the basis for using low-cost footswitch devices to predict fall risk.

Language: en