Power in wheelchair propulsion: Advancing the use of wearable sensors for wheelchair sports practice

From the perspective of wheelchair sports practice, there is a growing need to provide feedback on power output. Power can be used to monitor athletes' fitness and fatigue levels, thereby preventing overtraining and potential injuries, to individualize and analyze training programs, and it is also an objective measure of effort or intensity....

Towards an accurate rolling resistance: Estimating intra-cycle load distribution between front and rear wheels during wheelchair propulsion from inertial sensors

Accurate assessment of rolling resistance is important for wheelchair propulsion analyses. However, the commonly used drag and deceleration tests are reported to underestimate rolling resistance up to 6% due to the (neglected) influence of trunk motion. The first aim of this study was to investigate the accuracy of using trunk and wheelchair...

Using Wearable Sensors to Estimate Mechanical Power Output in Cyclical Sports Other than Cycling: A Review

More insight into in-field mechanical power in cyclical sports is useful for coaches, sport scientists, and athletes for various reasons. To estimate in-field mechanical power, the use of wearable sensors can be a convenient solution. However, as many model options and approaches for mechanical power estimation using wearable sensors exist, and...

Home‐Based Measurements of Dystonia in Cerebral Palsy Using Smartphone‐Coupled Inertial Sensor Technology and Machine Learning: A Proof‐of‐Concept Study

Accurate and reliable measurement of the severity of dystonia is essential for the indication, evaluation, monitoring and fine‐tuning of treatments. Assessment of dystonia in children and adolescents with dyskinetic cerebral palsy (CP) is now commonly performed by visual evaluation either directly in the doctor’s office or from video...

Quantification of Error Sources with Inertial Measurement Units in Sports

Background: Inertial measurement units (IMUs) offer the possibility to capture the lower body motions of players of outdoor team sports. However, various sources of error are present when using IMUs: the definition of the body frames, the soft tissue artefact (STA) and the orientation filter. Methods to minimize these errors are currently...

Reliability and Validity of IMU-Based Foot Progression Angle Measurement under Different Gait Retraining Strategies

Load modifying gait retraining strategies, such as changing the foot progression angle (FPA) to toe-in and toe-out gait, are used for people with medial knee osteoarthritis. The FPA can be measured using a pressure sensitive walkway (PSW), but inertial measurement units (IMUs) are considered more suitable for clinical use. This study...

Wearable Sensor-Based Real-Time Gait Detection: A Systematic Review

Gait analysis has traditionally been carried out in a laboratory environment using expensive equipment, but, recently, reliable, affordable, and wearable sensors have enabled integration into clinical applications as well as use during activities of daily living. Real-time gait analysis is key to the development of gait rehabilitation techniques...

Individualised Ball Speed Prediction in Baseball Pitching Based on IMU Data

Ball velocity is considered an important performance measure in baseball pitching. Proper pitching mechanics play an important role in both maximising ball velocity and injury-free participation of baseball pitchers. However, an individual pitcher’s characteristics display individuality and may contribute to velocity imparted to the ball. The...

The Stumblemeter: Design and Validation of a System That Detects and Classifies Stumbles during Gait

Stumbling during gait is commonly encountered in patients who suffer from mild to serious walking problems, e.g., after stroke, in osteoarthritis, or amputees using a lower leg prosthesis. Instead of self-reporting, an objective assessment of the number of stumbles in daily life would inform clinicians more accurately and enable the evaluation...

Machine Learning to Improve Orientation Estimation in Sports Situations Challenging for Inertial Sensor Use

In sports, inertial measurement units are often used to measure the orientation of human body segments. A Madgwick (MW) filter can be used to obtain accurate inertial measurement unit (IMU) orientation estimates. This filter combines two different orientation estimates by applying a correction of the (1) gyroscope-based estimate in the...

Inertial Sensor-Based Lower Limb Joint Kinematics: A Methodological Systematic Review

The use of inertial measurement units (IMUs) has gained popularity for the estimation of lower limb kinematics. However, implementations in clinical practice are still lacking. The aim of this review is twofold-to evaluate the methodological requirements for IMU-based joint kinematic estimation to be applicable in a clinical setting, and to...