As the average life expectancy grows, the challenge to keep everyone as long as possible also grows to be an active participant in society. Sustainable independent mobility is of great importance importance for functioning in society (at the workplace and in the home environment), contributes to the social functioning and overall social cohesion. Good control over the (dynamic) balance during moving forward, even in healthy, young people, a continuous compromise between effectiveness and safety, plays a crucial role in this. Moreover, for the elderly, a fracture as a result of a fall is a difficult rehabilitation and reduced life expectancy.
Mechanisms of maintaining the dynamic balance in practical conditions still exist
largely misunderstood. Laboratory research provides little certainty about fall risks in everyday life practice. Wearable sensor technology is currently opening a door to systematic research into fall risks in daily life, but still falls short in achievable precision and stability over time measurements. A solution offers a new generation of motion sensor technology with central characteristic that motion sensors are no longer separate measuring instruments, but function together. Saxion and partners in the INSTANT project are investigating how modern motion sensors can become expanded with an additional sensor modality ("Ultra Wide Band"), and associated "meta-data fusion" algorithms, for use in gait analysis of the knee in physiotherapy. The sensors can be each other's perceive position and are expected to measure an order more accurately in a way that is moreover is more stable over longer measurements. Colleagues in Torino and Sassari, Italy, are also developing new ones
gait analysis methods, now with IR sensor technology for distance measurement. Research in this KIEM project both groups together how, and to what extent, dynamic balance can be accurately measured with (a combination of) both methods. Placing an Italian researcher in the INSTANT research cluster in Enschede guarantees this collaboration throughout the year.
Partners
Roessingh R&D, Gable en Politiecnico di Torino/Università degli Sassari.
Duration
Het project loopt van 2 november 2020 t/m 1 november 2021.
More information
Financing
This project is funded by SIA.