Body movement monitoring device

• US 20050010139A1
• Filed: 02/06/2003
• Published: 01/13/2005
• Est. Priority Date: 02/07/2002
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: EPFL - Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne
• Original Assignee: EPFL - Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne
• Inventors: Morel, Pascal, Bijan, Najafi, Gramiger, Jean, Aminian, Kamiar
• Granted Patent: US 8,109,890 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 600/595
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 2562/0219 Inertial sensors, e.g. accelerometers, gyroscopes, tilt switches
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/1038 Measuring plantar pressure during gait
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/112 Gait analysis
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/6828 Leg
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/7225 Details of analog processing, e.g. isolation amplifier, gain or sensitivity adjustment, filtering, baseline or drift compensation A61B5/30, A61B5/316 take precedence; transformers for specific applications H01F38/00; amplifiers H03F
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/726 using Wavelet transforms
• CPC Class Codes: G01C 22/006 Pedometers
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 40/25 Recognition of walking or running movements, e.g. gait recognition

Abstract

The invention relates to a device and a method for measuring gait parameters.

Claims

1. An autonomous measuring unit comprising

a. a set of sensors,

b. conditioning means for deriving information from said sensor,

c. display means for displaying said information to an operator,

characterized by the fact that it furthermore comprises means for recording kinematic parameters of body segment.

2. Autonomous measuring unit according to claim 1 wherein at least one sensor is an angular rate sensor designed for measuring rotation of the segment on which it is attached.

3. Autonomous measuring unit according to claim 1 furthermore comprising means for measuring and recording temperature.

4. Body movement monitoring system comprising a set of autonomous measuring units as defined in claim 1, wherein the said autonomous measuring units are designed to be attached on lower limbs.

5. Body movement monitoring system according to claim 4 furthermore comprising means for determining the time of initial and terminal contact (heelstrike and toe-off) of each foot, the range of rotation of each shank, each thigh and each knee, as well as the stride length and stride velocity during walking.

6. Body monitoring system according to claim 5 wherein the means as defined in claim 5 include processing methods to detect the local minimum negative peaks of the shank angular velocity in order to find initial and terminal contact of the foot, and a double segment gait model involving both shank and thigh in order to estimate angular rotation of lower limbs, stride length and stride velocity.

7. Method for the use of a system according to claim 4 wherein all autonomous measuring units are synchronized by connecting to a station before the beginning of measurement and at the end of measurement.

8. Method according to claim 7 wherein the data saved on each unit are transferred to the computer, and wherein the station maintains the charge of each unit and tests the state of the sensors and the state of any other essential elements such as the measuring circuits, the state of the memory, the battery and the display of each unit.

9. Method according to claim 7 wherein the spatio-temporal parameters of gait are estimated during each gait cycle (two steps), providing the estimation of mean value and inter-cycle variation of these parameters during a walking trial.