Development of an Alternative System for Suspended Gait Analysis

Abstract

Spinal Cord Injury (SCI) may impair an individual's gait. For these cases, a rehabilitation technique that has become more popular is Functional Electrical Stimulation (FES). Gait analysis is an important technique to evaluate rehabilitation of patients undergoing FES-assisted therapy. This work proposes a system that monitors gait variables -knee joint angles, and ground reaction forces (heel and metatarsal) -and uses them as inputs for gait analysis of paraplegic patients. The methods for building the data acquisition hardware (transducers and interface) and software are described, along with the transducer calibration methods. The results show the final prototype for the gait analysis system, which allows comparison between different individuals' gaits, as well as different rehabilitation stages for the same individual. The software has a recording feature, as well as digital control outputs, which may be used in the future for training an Artificial Neural Network (ANN) and controlling the individual's FES stimulator. In the near future, the system may be of great applicability for suspended FES-assisted gait analysis and control.