Use of an Enactive Insole for Reducing the Risk of Falling on Different Types of Soil Using Vibrotactile Cueing for the Elderly

This study investigates the simple reaction time (SRT) and response time (RT) to a vibrotactile stimulus presented on two body locations at the lower extremity of the foot on different types of surface during walking. We determined RTs while walking on Concrete, Foam, Sand, and gravel surface. Also, for RT, we evaluated two vibrotactile stimulus (VS) locations on the lower extremity: the ankle (AL) and under the foot plantar (FP). A total of 21 young adult participants (n = 21), aged mean 24 ± 2.9 years, took part in a two-session experiment with two main conditions (at rest and while walking on four types of surface). The control session included 2016 repeated measures, with one-way and two-way ANOVA analyses. The findings have consistently revealed slowness of RT to VS, in particular on sand and gravel surface. In addition, we found that body location has a significant effect on RT in certain surfaces. These results showed that RTs increased with environment changes during the performance of dual tasks.

Section: Apparatus: Enactive Shoementioning

confidence: 99%

Response Time to a Vibrotactile Stimulus Presented on the Foot at Rest and During Walking on Different Surfaces

Tchakouté

Tremblay

Ménélas

2018

“…Indeed, when walking there is friction exerted on the receptors of the surface of the foot. These frictions can cause perceptual conflicts, especially when the sole has different textures [8][9][10]. As a result, the transmission of information by the haptic modality in such conditions will be poorly perceived because of the dual-task situation.…”

Section: Implication Of the Results From This Studymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The wearable device was designed based on some previous works [4,25,26]. We used an enactive shoe controlled by a smartphone that prevents falls related to a person's immediate environment or an abnormal gait [8,27,28]. This device is a wearable device with a mini-computer-based processing system including a set of sensors and actuators distributed in strategic positions ( Figure 1).…”

Section: Wearable Devicementioning

confidence: 99%

“…We realized that in the area of health, the haptic channel could be used to orient people with low mobility [7]. It can also be used to reduce the risk of falling at home or in mobile situations by taking into account some aspects of the external environment, such as the types of soil [7,8]. In this context, in the past, we have demonstrated that it is possible to use the haptic channel to inform the user of a potential risk (low, medium, high, and very high) by using a vibrotactile stimulus sent to the plantar surface of the user's foot [4].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Perception of a Haptic Stimulus Presented Under the Foot Under Workload

Tchakouté

Ménélas

2020

It is clear that the haptic channel can be exploited as a communication medium for several tasks of everyday life. Here we investigated whether such communication can be altered in a cognitive load situation. We studied the perception of a vibrotactile stimulus presented under the foot when the attention is loaded by another task (cognitive load). The results demonstrated a significant influence of workload on the perception of the vibrotactile stimulus. Overall, we observed that the average score in the single-task (at rest) condition was greater than the overall mean score in the dual-task conditions (counting forwards, counting backwards, and walking). The walking task was the task that most influenced the perception of the vibrotactile stimulus presented under the foot.

“…Thus, we think that a single insole placed on the right foot (the foot we have chosen as usually the dominant foot of participant) could measure the COP positions in order to acquire the features we need for posture classification. In other studies related to the computation of the risk of fall, we also use only one enactive insole (located on the dominant limb) with successful results [ 44 ]. All this makes it possible to reduce the production cost of the device and use a minimal configuration and architecture (already presented in two other studies [ 45 , 46 ]).…”

Section: Design Of the Measurement Systemmentioning

confidence: 99%

Wearable Devices for Classification of Inadequate Posture at Work Using Neural Networks

Barkallah

Freulard

Otis

et al. 2017

Inadequate postures adopted by an operator at work are among the most important risk factors in Work-related Musculoskeletal Disorders (WMSDs). Although several studies have focused on inadequate posture, there is limited information on its identification in a work context. The aim of this study is to automatically differentiate between adequate and inadequate postures using two wearable devices (helmet and instrumented insole) with an inertial measurement unit (IMU) and force sensors. From the force sensors located inside the insole, the center of pressure (COP) is computed since it is considered an important parameter in the analysis of posture. In a first step, a set of 60 features is computed with a direct approach, and later reduced to eight via a hybrid feature selection. A neural network is then employed to classify the current posture of a worker, yielding a recognition rate of 90%. In a second step, an innovative graphic approach is proposed to extract three additional features for the classification. This approach represents the main contribution of this study. Combining both approaches improves the recognition rate to 95%. Our results suggest that neural network could be applied successfully for the classification of adequate and inadequate posture.