The Automatization of the Gait Analysis by the Vicon Video System: A Pilot Study

Abstract

The quality of modern measuring instruments has a strong influence on the speed of diagnosing diseases of the human musculoskeletal system. The research is focused on automatization of the method of gait analysis. The study involved six healthy subjects. The subjects walk straight. Each subject made several gait types: casual walking and imitation of a non-standard gait, including shuffling, lameness, clubfoot, walking from the heel, rolling from heel to toe, walking with hands in pockets, and catwalk. Each type of gait was recorded three times. For video fixation, the Vicon Nexus system was used. A total of 27 reflective markers were placed on the special anatomical regions. The goniometry methods were used. The walk data were divided by steps and by step phases. Kinematic parameters for estimation were formulated and calculated. An approach for data clusterization is presented. For this purpose, angle data were interpolated and the interpolation coefficients were used for clustering the data. The data were processed and four cluster groups were found. Typical angulograms for cluster groups were presented. For each group, average angles were calculated. A statistically significant difference was found between received cluster groups.