A Wearable Device for Detecting and Analyzing Gait Changes

Gait is an essential bio-marker for long-term health. Gait analysis traditionally depends on vision-based or expensive pressure mats where patients are asked to walk or perform standard limb movements. However, such tests happen late in the onset of the problem. Early monitoring and detection of gait changes could prevent severe conditions.Despite a plethora of wearable devices, such as fitness bands and health trackers, no single device monitors gait and provides an early diagnosis. This work presents a proof-of-concept of our in-house developed wearable inertial measurement unit (IMU) for extracting gait patterns. We further present the results of detecting changes in gait patterns. The device was tested with ten volunteers (six males and four females, $25 \pm 1.8years$, $163 \pm 8.8 cm$) who provided data for both normal and abnormal walking resulting in around 700 gait samples. The results show that sudden changes in gait can be detected with an affordable and portable wearable device.