Identification of footstrike pattern using accelerometry and machine learning

Recent reports have suggested that there may be a relationship between footstrike pattern and overuse injury incidence and type. With the recent increase in wearable sensors, it is important to identify paradigms where the footstrike pattern can be detected in real-time from minimal data. Machine learning was used to classify tibial acceleration data into three distinct footstrike patterns: rearfoot, midfoot, or forefoot. Tibial accelerometry data were collected during treadmill running from 58 participants who each ran with rearfoot, midfoot, and forefoot strike patterns. These data were used as inputs into an artificial neural network classifier. Models were created by using three distinct acceleration data sets, using the first 100%, 75%, and 40% of stance phase. All models were able to predict the footstrike pattern with up to 89.9% average accuracy. The highest error was associated with the identification of the midfoot versus forefoot strike pattern. This technique required no pre-selection of features or filtering of the data and may be easily incorporated into a wearable device to aid with real-time footstrike pattern detection.