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Updated: Jan 10, 2026
Substantiating Appropriate Motion Capture Techniques for the Assessment of Nordic Walking Gait and Posture in Older Adults
Published on: May 12, 2016
Using 3D skeleton tracking for gait analysis in older adults compared to a kinect-based mobility analysis system
Kathrin Raeder1, Nicole Strutz2,3,4, Simone Kuntz1
1Geriatrics Research Group, Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin (corporate member of Freie Universität Berlin and Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin), Berlin, Germany.
Background:
Older persons are affected by falls and their associated consequences. This cohort is often unaware of their own risk of falling or misjudge it. Mobility and fall risk apps are therefore useful tools for recognizing fall risks and creating opportunities to reduce them. The aim of the study was to compare the agreement of a mobility analysis smartphone camera-based application (SCA) with an included advanced 3D skeleton tracking with the reference system Microsoft Kinect SystemR (MKS).
Methods:
In a cross-sectional design, 186 data sets from 31 older adults were assessed at the same time with both systems depending on two gait modes (comfort and fast).
Results:
For the comfort mode, the ICC values ranged from 0.74 (gait speed; 95% CI: 0, 0.93) to 0.85 (cadence; 95% CI: 0.62, 0.93). The fast mode showed a slightly lower agreement between both systems. ICC values moved from 0.66 (gait speed; 95% CI: 0, 0.90) to 0.81 (cadence; 95% CI: 0.46, 0.91).
Conclusion:
With the exception of gait speed, both systems demonstrated good agreement (ICC > 0.75) in measuring spatiotemporal gait parameters. These findings suggest that the SCA has the potential to serve as a reliable and practical instrument in the context of clinical gait analysis.
