Using a foot mounted accelerometer to detect changes in gait patterns

The purpose of this study is to investigate how datafrom a foot mounted accelerometer can be used to detect motorpattern healthy subjects performed walking trails under twodifferent conditions; normal and stiff ankle walking. Lowerbody kinematic data were collected as well as accelerometerdata from both feet. An algorithm is presented which quantifiesrelevant swing phase characteristics from the footaccelerometer. Peak total acceleration during initial swing wassignificantly higher in the stiff ankle condition (M = 33.10, SD =5.12) than in the normal walking condition (M = 29.47, SD =5.75; t(7) = 4.32, p = .003, two-tailed). There was a large effectsize (eta squared = 0.853). Time between peak accelerationduring initial swing to foot strike was significantly shorter inthe stiff ankle condition (M = 0.42, SD = 0.02) than in thenormal condition (M = 0.44, SD = 0.03; t(7) = -2.54, p = .039,two- tailed). There was a large effect size (eta squared = 0.693).Simple to process metrics from tri-axial accelerometer data onthe foot show potential to detect changes in ankle kinematicpatterns.