Real-Time Fall Risk Assessment Using Functional Reach Test

Abstract

Falls are common and dangerous for survivors of stroke at all stages of recovery. The widespread need to assess fall risk in real time for individuals after stroke has generated emerging requests for a reliable, inexpensive, quantifiable, and remote clinical measure/tool. In order to meet these requests, we explore the Functional Reach Test (FRT) for real-time fall risk assessment and implement the FRT function in mStroke, a real-time and automatic mobile health system for poststroke recovery and rehabilitation. mStroke is designed, developed, and delivered as an Application (App) running on a hardware platform consisting of an iPad and one or two wireless body motion sensors based on different mobile health functions. The FRT function in mStroke is extensively tested on healthy human subjects to verify its concept and feasibility. Preliminary performance will be presented to justify the further exploration of the FRT function in mStroke through clinical trials on individuals after stroke, which may guide its ubiquitous exploitation in the near future.

Figure 1

NODE.

Figure 2

NODE on the chest for FRT.

Figure 3

Rotation from frame B to frame C.

Figure 4

A subject performing the FRT wearing a single chest NODE, Group 1.

Figure 5

Histogram plot of torso twist angle (°), Group 1.

Figure 6

Bland Altman plot between d _PT and d ₁, Group 1.

Figure 7

Bland Altman plots between d _PT and d ₂, Group 1.

Figure 8

A subject performing the FRT using two NODEs on the chest and the left thigh, respectively, Group 2.

Figure 9

Histogram plot of torso twist angle (°), Group 2.

Figure 10

Histogram plot of thigh movement angle (°), Group 2.