Walking analysis of young and elderly people by using an intelligent walker ANG

Abstract This paper proposes a new method to analyze human walking by using a 3-wheels rollator walker instrumented with encoders and a 3D accelerometer/gyrometer. In order to develop walking quality index and monitor the health state of elderly people at home, the walking patterns of 23 young adults and 25 elderly people ( > 69 years) with the help of the walker, are compared. The results show that many general walking indicators such as walking speed and stride length do not present obvious difference between the two groups, but that new indicators obtained by using the walker measurements and not available otherwise are very discriminating, e.g., the lateral motion of elderly people is larger, their walking accuracy is lower, but their effort distributed on the handles is more symmetrical. We also show that this walker may have other purposes such as updating collaborative maps with sideway slopes, and location of lowered kerbs.