The Relationship among Kinematics and Balance of Lower Extremity, Walking Ability and Functional Activities in Hemiparetic and Hemiplegic Patients

The gate analysis plays the basis of rehabilitation plan. For the stroke patients with hemiparetic or hemiplegia, their lower-limb movement ability decides how well they can join the social activities. This two-year research project aims to investigate the parameter extraction of gate analysis for lower-limb kinesiology through using inertial measurement units (IMUs); further, the correlation between the developed techniques and the clinical subjective assessment is to be investigated. Two issues are explore; first, both (i) the meaningful data screening of IMUs, and (ii) kinesiology parameter computation of lower-limb movement are coded and justified; second, the rehabilitation engineering practice is considered including (i) the construction of wireless four-IMUs measurement module, (ii) the correlation analysis between subjective assessment and objective extracted parameters of gait analysis, and (iii) the objective evaluation to the patients’ daily activity from their lower-limb gait parameters. This research project was initiated by the thrombotic stroke of PI’s mother in December, 2016. During the period of the six-month rehabilitation treatment between Sijhih Cathay General Hospital (Dr. Han as the Co-PI of this project) and Lotung Poh-Ai Hospital. The issues on enhancing the reliability of objectively assessing stroke patients’ walking ability and daily-life capability, and on acquiring meaningful data of wearable instrument from remote in-house rehab treatment both ignite the ideas of this study.