COMPARISON OF GAIT SYMMETRY INDICATORS IN OVERGROUND WALKING AND TREADMILL WALKING USING WIRELESS GYROSCOPES

Abstract

Gait symmetry has been considered as one of the primary indicators in gait analysis. A symmetrical gait offers several benefits. Among them is a stable and adaptive gait. With wide adoption of wireless inertial sensors i.e., the gyroscope in clinical and rehabilitation settings, this work aimed to investigate the application of symmetry index (SI), symmetry ratio (SR) and normalised symmetry index (SInorm) in defining gait symmetry using measurement collected from wireless gyroscope network. Thigh and shank angular rates during mid-swing, heel-strike and toe-off are used to determine SI, SR and SInorm. In this study, participants were not only instructed to walk naturally on the ground and on a treadmill, but were also requested to walk with restricted knee movement on the ground and on a treadmill to emulate asymmetrical gait. This study demonstrated that the gyroscope can be used to determine gait symmetry. It also shows that SI and SR are not the right indicators to examine gait symmetry using gyroscope data. SI can exceed more than 1,000% at several instances. SR exhibits similar behavior too i.e., it can be as high as 1,000. SInorm performs better in both overground walking and treadmill walking and there are significant difference between symmetrical and asymmetrical gait (p < 0.01).