Ambulatory system for human motion analysis using a kinematic sensor: monitoring of daily physical activity in the elderly

A new method of physical activity monitoring is presented, which is able to detect body postures (sitting, standing, and lying) and periods of walking in elderly persons using only one kinematic sensor attached to the chest. The wavelet transform, in conjunction with a simple kinematics model, was used to detect different postural transitions (PTs) and walking periods during daily physical activity. To evaluate the system, three studies were performed. The method was first tested on 11 community-dwelling elderly subjects in a gait laboratory where an optical motion system (Vicon) was used as a reference system. In the second study, the system was tested for classifying PTs (i.e., lying-to-sitting,…

• ÉP
  École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne