Sensors 2012, 12(12), 17620-17632; doi:10.3390/s121217620
A Wireless Accelerometer-Based Body Posture Stability Detection System and Its Application for Meditation Practitioners
Kang-Ming Chang 1,2, Sih-Huei Chen 3, Hsin-Yi Lee 4, Congo Tak-Shing Ching 5,†
and Chun-Lung Huang 6,†,*
and Chun-Lung Huang 6,†,*
1
Department of Photonics and Communication Engineering, Asia University, Taichung 41354, Taiwan
2
Graduate Institute of Clinical Medical Science, China Medical University, Taichung 40402, Taiwan
3
Department of Computer Science and Information Engineering, Asia University, Taichung 41354, Taiwan
4
Department of Psychology, Asia University, Taichung 41354, Taiwan
5
Department of Electrical Engineering, National Chi Nan University, Nantou 54561, Taiwan
6
Department of Mechanical and Automatic Engineering, Chung Chou University of Science and Technology, Changhua 510, Taiwan
†
These authors contributed equally to this work.
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Received: 19 October 2012 / Revised: 12 December 2012 / Accepted: 12 December 2012 / Published: 18 December 2012
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Medical & Biological Imaging)
Abstract
The practice of meditation has become an interesting research issue in recent decades. Meditation is known to be beneficial for health improvement and illness reduction and many studies on meditation have been made, from both the physiological and psychological points of view. It is a fundamental requirement of meditation practice to be able to sit without body motion. In this study, a novel body motion monitoring and estimation system has been developed. A wireless tri-axis accelerometer is used to measure body motion. Both a mean and maximum motion index is derived from the square summation of three axes. Two experiments were conducted in this study. The first experiment was to investigate the motion index baseline among three leg-crossing postures. The second experiment was to observe posture dynamics for thirty minute’s meditation. Twenty-six subjects participated in the experiments. In one experiment, thirteen subjects were recruited from an experienced meditation group (meditation experience > 3 years); and the other thirteen subjects were beginners (meditation experience < 1 years). There was a significant posture stability difference between both groups in terms of either mean or maximum parameters (p < 0.05), according to the results of the experiment. Results from another experiment showed that the motion index is different for various postures, such as full-lotus < half-lotus < non-lotus. View Full-Text
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 3.0).
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MDPI and ACS Style
Chang, K.-M.; Chen, S.-H.; Lee, H.-Y.; Ching, C.T.-S.; Huang, C.-L. A Wireless Accelerometer-Based Body Posture Stability Detection System and Its Application for Meditation Practitioners. Sensors 2012, 12, 17620-17632.