Balance Evaluation Based on Walking Experiments with Exoskeleton Interference.

Area of Science:

• Biomechanics
• Human Motor Control
• Rehabilitation Engineering

Background:

• Impaired walking balance significantly impacts health and increases fall risk.
• Current human walking balance assessment methods are subjective and lack comprehensive metrics.
• Objective and effective evaluation is crucial for intervention and improvement.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop a comprehensive evaluation index for human walking balance.
• To generate personalized and general walking balance indexes.
• To validate the effectiveness of the proposed index in distinguishing balance capabilities.

Main Methods:

• Pre-selection of walking balance metrics based on theoretical analysis.
• Collection of ground reaction force and kinematic data from healthy subjects and a patient with Charcot-Marie-Tooth.
• Statistical analysis to identify effective metrics and principal component analysis to construct the Walking Balance Index (WBI).

Main Results:

• Identification of effective evaluation metrics for walking balance.
• Construction of the Walking Balance Index (WBI) by integrating multiple metrics.
• Demonstration that the WBI effectively differentiates walking balance across subjects and conditions.

Conclusions:

• The developed Walking Balance Index (WBI) provides a comprehensive and effective method for assessing human walking balance.
• This index can be utilized for evaluating and enhancing walking balance in future research and clinical applications.
• The method offers a significant advancement over existing subjective and less effective assessment techniques.