Differentiating fallers from nonfallers using nonlinear variability analyses of data from a low-cost portable footswitch device: a feasibility study
Related Experiment Video
Updated: Oct 11, 2025
Design and Analysis for Fall Detection System Simplification
Published on: April 6, 2020
Arash Mohammadzadeh Gonabadi1,2, Prokopios Antonellis1, Philippe Malcolm1
1Department of Biomechanics and Center for Research in Human Movement Variability, University of Nebraska at Omaha, Omaha, Nebraska, United States of America.
Purpose:
Falls are one of the main causes of injuries in older adults. This study evaluated a low-cost footswitch device that was designed to measure gait variability and investigates whether there are any relationships between variability metrics and clinical balance tests for individuals with a history of previous falls.
Methods:
Sixteen older adults completed a history of falls questionnaire, three functional tests related to fall risk, and walked on a treadmill with the footswitch device. We extracted the stride times from the device and applied two nonlinear variability analyses: coefficient of variation and detrended fluctuation analysis.
Results:
The temporal variables and variability metrics from the footswitch device correlated with gold-standard measurements based on ground reaction force data. One variability metric (detrended fluctuation analysis) showed a significant relationship with the presence of past falls with a sensitivity of 43%.
Conclusion:
This feasibility study demonstrates the basis for using low-cost footswitch devices to predict fall risk.
