Experimental Development and Validation of an E-Textile Sock Prototype

SWEET Sock is a wearable prototype device designed as a sensorized sock in E-Textile, which allows the acquisition of plantar pressure and acceleration signals deriving from the motion of the lower limbs. Aim of this study is to validate the device, comparing its collected data to the ones obtained by standard instrument used in clinical environment. Accelerometric signals recorded by Sweet Sock have been compared with those obtained by the inertial system Opal by APDM, while Zebris baropodometric platform by FDM has been used as the reference system to validate pressure signals. Bland-Altman analysis has been used to assess benchmarking. Both for accelerometric and pressure signals, no systematic or proportional difference between the devices has been carried out, resulting that reliable measures can be obtained with the prototype device.