title: The Impact of Vibrotactile Biofeedback on the Excessive Walking Sway and the Postural Control in Elderly.
abstract: Gait and postural control are important aspects of human movement and balance. Normal movement control in human is subject to change with aging. With aging, the nervous system comprising, somatosensory, visual senses, spatial orientation senses, and neuromuscular control degrade. As a result, the body movement control such as the lateral sway while walking is affected which has been shown to be a significant cause of falling among the elderly. Biofeedback has been investigated to assist elderly improve their body movement and postural ability, by supplementing the feedback to the nervous system. In this paper, we propose a wearable low-power sensor system capable of characterizing lateral sway and gait parameters. Then, it can provide corrective feedback to reduce excessive sway in real-time via vibratory feedback modules. Real-time and low-power characteristics along with wearability of our proposed system allow long-term continuous subjects' sway monitoring while giving direct feedback to enhance walking sway and prevent falling. It can also be used in the clinics as a tool for evaluating the risks of falls, and training users to better maintain their balance. The effectiveness of the biofeedback system was evaluated on 12 older adults as they performed gait and stance tasks with and without biofeedback. Significant improvement (p-value < 0.1) in sway angle in variance of the sway angle, variance of gait phases, and in postural control while on perturbed surface was detected when the proposed Sway Error Feedback System was used.
authors.affiliation: Electrical Engineering Department, University of Texas at Dallas 800 W Campbell Rd, Richardson, TX 75080.
authors.forename: Omid
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Dehzangi
authors.affiliation: Electrical Engineering Department, University of Texas at Dallas 800 W Campbell Rd, Richardson, TX 75080.
authors.forename: Zheng
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Zhao
authors.affiliation: Electrical Engineering Department, University of Texas at Dallas 800 W Campbell Rd, Richardson, TX 75080.
authors.forename: Mohammad-Mahdi
authors.initials: MM
authors.lastname: Bidmeshki
authors.affiliation: Center for Healthy Living and Longevity, University of Texas at Arlington 500 W Nedderman Drive, Arlington, TX 76019.
authors.forename: John
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Biggan
authors.affiliation: Center for Healthy Living and Longevity, University of Texas at Arlington 500 W Nedderman Drive, Arlington, TX 76019.
authors.forename: Christopher
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Ray
authors.affiliation: Electrical Engineering Department, University of Texas at Dallas 800 W Campbell Rd, Richardson, TX 75080.
authors.forename: Roozbeh
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Jafari
keywords: Biofeedback; Body movement; Design; Experimentation; Gait; Lateral sway; Measurement; Postural control; Sway monitoring; Verification