MotionLab@Home: Complementary Measurement of Gait Characteristics Using Wearable Technology and Markerless Video Tracking - A Study Protocol

Background: While treatment monitoring of healthcare interventions is mainly conducted at the hospital, most information on a patient’s health status could be obtained from his everyday life activities. Therefore, there is a great interest in methods for long term (home) monitoring applications. However, there is still a lack of quantitative methods allowing everyday life activities monitoring such as gait analysis at home. While video-based systems have been employed given their high accuracy, they remain expensive and obtrusive with the range of motion of a patient limited to the set up measurement volume. Body worn sensors on the other hand present as an excellent opportunity to remotely and unobtrusively monitor gait characteristics not only at home, but during activities of everyday life. Technical limitations as well as changes in the patient’s gait patterns challenge the extraction of specific gait parameters. Methods: We propose a hybrid system comprising of a markerless video-based motion capturing system and a wearable sensor system with foot worn sensors. A study protocol is presented that will be used to validate the systems against each other. Discussion: This study will evaluate whether a markerless motion capturing system is feasible as a complementary tool for everyday gait analysis. Further, we will validate the accuracy of the sensor system using the video-based system as a gold standard. In the future, the combination might allow a recalibration of algorithmic sensor parameters based on deviations from the reference video-based system, and the combination of both modalities may enhance gait analysis in home monitoring.

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