A novel wearable biofeedback system to prevent trip-related falls

Real-time gait monitoring of older adults and gait-impaired individuals while providing real-time biofeedback has the potential to help reduce trip-related falls. A low or unsuccessful Minimum Toe Clearance (MTC) is considered a predictor of tripping risk. Thus, increasing the MTC can be a key component in minimizing the likelihood of tripping. This paper discusses a proof-of-concept wearable system that estimates the MTC in real-time using two Time-of-Flight (ToF) sensors and provides auditory biofeedback to alert users if they have a low MTC during everyday walking activities. Ten healthy female adults were asked to perform two experiments: 1) walk at a predetermined speed to evaluate the proposed real-time MTC detection algorithm, and 2) walk in four conditions: baseline, biofeedback with no distraction, biofeedback with distraction 1 (talking on the phone), and biofeedback with distraction 2 (playing a simple mobile game). The average MTC values were significantly greater during all feedback conditions than the baseline, indicating that the proposed system could successfully warn users to increase their MTC in real-time.