Completed Projects of the Junior Research Group Schwenk

Project "REAL WORLD WALKING"

Subject/Topic:
Development and validation of a new electronic gait assessment for the determination of daily life gaitpatterns.

Duration:
2016-2018

Project description:
Due to technical measurement limitation, previous approaches of gait analysis of elderly people have generally been limited to the measurement of gait parameters during straight walking. Everyday locomotion, however, requires not only walking straight ahead but also walking curves, turns, sideways and backwards. So far, clinically validated protocols have been poorly developed for the determination of temporal-spatial gait parameters during everyday gait patterns. Nonetheless, such methods may offer an added value in terms of estimating everyday motor performance, fall risk or cognitive aspects of gait control (dual-tasking). A new gait analysis system (GAITRite CIRFACE) enables the measurement of temporal-spatial gait parameters during various everyday gait patterns. New measurement protocols for gait analysis will be developed and clinically validated within this project.

Project partners:
Dr. Michael Schwenk, NAR, Universität Heidelberg
Katharina Gordt, NAR, Universität Heidelberg
Thomas Gerhardy, NAR, Universität Heidelberg

Cooperation partners:
GAITRite CIR Systems,  NJ, USA