Document Type

Article

Publication Date

1-12-2018

Publication Title

Journal of Rehabilitation and Assistive Technologies Engineering

Publisher

Sage and Open Access Pages

Volume

5

First page number:

1

Last page number:

12

Abstract

Introduction Pressure-measuring insoles can provide a portable alternative to existing gait analysis tools. However, there is disagreement among researchers on their accuracy and the appropriate calibration methods. The purposes of this study were to (1) determine the validity of pressure-measuring insoles for calculating stance time and support-phase impulse during walking using two calibration procedures, and (2) examine the effect of insole size on the results. Methods Data were collected from 39 participants (23.5 ± 3.24 yrs, 66.7 ± 17.5 kg, 1.64 ± 0.09 m), each wearing appropriately sized insoles as they walked over two consecutive force platforms. Two calibration methods were evaluated: (1) manufacturer’s recommendation, and (2) a participant weight-based approach. Qualitative and quantitative evaluations were conducted. Results The results indicated that the insoles measured longer stance times than the force platform (differences are less than 10%). Both calibration methods resulted in inaccurate impulse values (differences are 30 and 50% for the two calibration methods, respectively). The results showed that when using the first calibration method, impulse values depended on insole size. The second calibration consistently underestimated the impulse. Conclusions It was concluded that while the insoles provide acceptable qualitative representation of the gait, the two studied calibration methods may lead to a misleading quantitative assessment.

Keywords

Kinetics; Locomotion; Stance time; Support-phase impulse; Walking

Disciplines

Biomedical Engineering and Bioengineering

File Format

PDF

File Size

889 KB

Language

English

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 License

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