Gait Shear and Plantar Pressure Monitoring: A Non-Invasive OFS Based Solution for e-Health Architectures

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and Instituto de Telecomunicações, Instituto Superior Técnico, University of Lisbon, Lisbon 1049-001, Portugal

Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.

Sensors 2018, 18(5), 1334; https://doi.org/10.3390/s18051334

Received: 26 March 2018 / Revised: 12 April 2018 / Accepted: 20 April 2018 / Published: 25 April 2018

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sensors for Gait, Posture, and Health Monitoring)

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Abstract

In an era of unprecedented progress in sensing technology and communication, health services are now able to closely monitor patients and elderly citizens without jeopardizing their daily routines through health applications on their mobile devices in what is known as e-Health. Within this field, we propose an optical fiber sensor (OFS) based system for the simultaneous monitoring of shear and plantar pressure during gait movement. These parameters are considered to be two key factors in gait analysis that can help in the early diagnosis of multiple anomalies, such as diabetic foot ulcerations or in physical rehabilitation scenarios. The proposed solution is a biaxial OFS based on two in-line fiber Bragg gratings (FBGs), which were inscribed in the same optical fiber and placed individually in two adjacent cavities, forming a small sensing cell. Such design presents a more compact and resilient solution with higher accuracy when compared to the existing electronic systems. The implementation of the proposed elements into an insole is also described, showcasing the compactness of the sensing cells, which can easily be integrated into a non-invasive mobile e-Health solution for continuous remote gait monitoring of patients and elder citizens. The reported results show that the proposed system outperforms existing solutions, in the sense that it is able to dynamically discriminate shear and plantar pressure during gait. View Full-Text

Keywords: gait analysis; e-Health application; physical rehabilitation; shear and plantar pressure sensor; biaxial optical fiber sensor; multiplexed fiber Bragg gratings

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Tavares, C.; Domingues, M.F.; Frizera-Neto, A.; Leite, T.; Leitão, C.; Alberto, N.; Marques, C.; Radwan, A.; Rocon, E.; André, P.; Antunes, P. Gait Shear and Plantar Pressure Monitoring: A Non-Invasive OFS Based Solution for e-Health Architectures. Sensors 2018, 18, 1334. https://doi.org/10.3390/s18051334

AMA Style

Tavares C, Domingues MF, Frizera-Neto A, Leite T, Leitão C, Alberto N, Marques C, Radwan A, Rocon E, André P, Antunes P. Gait Shear and Plantar Pressure Monitoring: A Non-Invasive OFS Based Solution for e-Health Architectures. Sensors. 2018; 18(5):1334. https://doi.org/10.3390/s18051334

Chicago/Turabian Style

Tavares, Cátia, M. F. Domingues, Anselmo Frizera-Neto, Tiago Leite, Cátia Leitão, Nélia Alberto, Carlos Marques, Ayman Radwan, Eduardo Rocon, Paulo André, and Paulo Antunes. 2018. "Gait Shear and Plantar Pressure Monitoring: A Non-Invasive OFS Based Solution for e-Health Architectures" Sensors 18, no. 5: 1334. https://doi.org/10.3390/s18051334

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