A mobile gait monitoring system for gait analysis

Conventional gait rehabilitation treatment does not provide quantitative and graphical information on abnormal gait kinematics, and the match of the intervention strategy to the underlying clinical presentation may be limited by clinical expertise and experience. In this paper, a mobile gait monitoring system (MGMS) is proposed, which helps patients self correct their gait without restriction of time and place. The proposed MGMS consists of Smart Shoes, a data acquisition board, a mobile display, and a computing system. Ground contact force (GCF) of the feet measured by Smart Shoes and the normal GCF patterns are provided as visual feedback information for patients to correct their gait by trying to follow the normal GCF pattern. The degree of gait abnormality is quantified based on how far the measured GCFs are from the normal GCF bands. Also the change of center of GCF (CoCGF) of the feet is provided as a graphical gait analysis. The performance of the proposed MGMS has been verified by preliminary trials with patients suffering from a gait disorder.