title: Method to classify elderly subjects as fallers and non-fallers based on gait energy image.
abstract: Falls are one of the leading causes of injuries among the elderly. Therefore, distinguishing fallers and performing preventive actions is vitally important. A new variation of the gait energy image (GEI) called coloured gait energy image (CGEI) is proposed for classifying subjects as fallers and non-fallers and for visualising their gait patterns. Eight elderly fallers, eight elderly non-fallers and eight young subjects performed timed up and go (TUG) test, which is one of the well-known clinical tools for fall risk assessment and contains two gait sequences. Subjects were also asked to perform two other variations of the TUG test, namely TUG with manual load and TUG with cognitive load. Gait sequences were extracted from the TUG test based on the opinion of three human observers. Then the gait cycles were automatically extracted from the walking sequence and divided into three phases, corresponding to double support and first and second half of single support. Next, the GEI of each phase was generated and formed one of the colour components of CGEI. Histogram-based features obtained from CGEI were then used to classify the video collected from walking sequences of elderly fallers and non-fallers. Correct classification rate was improved by approximately 27% compared with the standard TUG test.
authors.affiliation: Motor Control and Computational Neuroscience laboratory , Control and Intelligent Processing Center of Excellence (CIPCE) , School of Electrical and Computer Engineering , College of Engineering , University of Tehran , Tehran 14395-515 , Iran.
authors.forename: Ziba
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Gandomkar
authors.affiliation: Motor Control and Computational Neuroscience laboratory , Control and Intelligent Processing Center of Excellence (CIPCE) , School of Electrical and Computer Engineering , College of Engineering , University of Tehran , Tehran 14395-515 , Iran.
authors.forename: Fariba
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Bahrami
keywords: CGEI; GEI; TUG test; clinical tools; cognitive load; colour components; coloured gait energy image; correct classification rate; data visualisation; elderly subject classification; fall risk assessment; gait analysis; gait cycles; gait energy image; gait pattern visualization; gait sequences; geriatrics; histogram-based features; image classification; image colour analysis; image sequences; medical image processing; nonfallers; timed up and go test; walking sequence