SONIGait: a wireless instrumented insole device for real-time sonification of gait

Abstract

The treatment of gait disorders and impairments are major challenges in physical therapy. The broad and fast development in low-cost, miniaturized, and wireless sensing technologies supports the development of embedded and unobtrusive systems for robust gait-related data acquisition and analysis. Next to their applications as portable and lowcost diagnostic tools, such systems are also capable of use as feedback devices for retraining gait. The approach described within this article applies movement-based sonification of gait to foster motor learning. This article aims at presenting and evaluating a prototype of a pair of instrumented insoles for real-time sonification of gait (SONIGait) and to assess its immediate effects on spatio-temporal gait parameters. For this purpose, a convenience sample of six healthy males (age 35 ± 5 years, height 178 ± 4 cm, mass 78 ± 12 kg) and six healthy females (age 38 ± 7 years, height 166 ± 5 cm, mass: 63±8 kg) was recruited. They walked at a self-selected walking speed across a force distribution measurement system (FDM) to quantify spatio-temporal gait parameters during walking without and with five different types of sonification. The primary results from this pilot study revealed that participants exhibited decreased cadence (p < 0.01) and differences Results suggest that sonification has an effect on gait parameters, however further investigation and development is needed to understand its role as a tool for gait rehabilitation.

Development of a 3D workspace shoulder assessment tool incorporating electromyography and an inertial measurement unit—a preliminary study

“…Currently, there is no similar study assessing full 3D ROM of the shoulder associated with muscle activity; however, there are some studies evaluating shoulder ROM in different planes of motion and some studies evaluating deltoid muscle activity in different shoulder activities [ 22 – 24 , 32 , 35 ].…”

“…There are different IMU sensors and algorithms such as Madgwick and Sabatini to calculate quaternions [ 21 ]. Horsak et al [ 22 ] assessed five different IMUs concluding that BNO055 (Bosch Sensortec—BNO055 intelligent 9-axis absolute orientation sensor) is the most suitable in terms of ease of use and data reliability. BNO055 uses a high-speed ARM Cortex-M0 processor and built in fusion algorithms and calibration function [ 23 ].…”

Advances in auditory display research

“…Horsak et al [9] presents and evaluates a wireless insole system that can be used to drive gait sonification while Stahl and Thoshkahna [15] presents and evaluates a sonification technique aimed to assist athletes in maintaining their heart rate within a pre-defined range. Tordini et al [17] investigates auditory salience as an important design aspect of auditory displays, focusing specifically on the effect and interaction of tempo and brightness on salience between concurrent signals.…”

Dual Mode Gait Sonification for Rehabilitation After Unilateral Hip Arthroplasty

“…The results showed increased stride length and gait velocity as well as decreased gait symmetry in the test group. There are further pilot and feasibility studies examining various methods of acoustic feedback for gait [41,42,43], but as far as we know, only few studies on patients with orthopedic restrictions of the musculoskeletal system have been conducted [44]. Several studies examined the impact of auditory feedback on healthy persons’ gait pattern [28,39,41,45,46].…”