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Recognition of motion patterns using accelerometers for ataxic gait assessment

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Abstract

The recognition of motion patterns belongs to very important research areas related to neurology, rehabilitation, and robotics. It is based on modern sensor technologies and general mathematical methods, multidimensional signal processing, and machine learning. The present paper is devoted to the detection of features associated with accelerometric data acquired by 31 time-synchronized sensors located at different parts of the body. Experimental data sets were acquired from 25 individuals diagnosed as healthy controls and ataxic patients. The proposed method includes the application of the discrete Fourier transform for the estimation of the mean power in selected frequency bands and the use of these features for data segments classification. The study includes a comparison of results obtained from signals recorded at different positions. Evaluations are based on classification accuracy and cross-validation errors estimated by support vector machine, Bayesian, nearest neighbours (k-NN], and neural network (NN) methods. Results show that highest accuracies of 77.1%, 78.9%, 89.9%, 98.0%, and 98.5% were achieved by NN method for signals acquired from the sensors on the feet, legs, uplegs, shoulders, and head/spine, respectively, recorded in 201 signal segments. The entire study is based on observations in the clinical environment and suggests the importance of augmented reality to decisions and diagnosis in neurology.

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Acknowledgements

This research was supported by grant projects of the Ministry of Health of the Czech Republic (FN HK 00179906) and of the Charles University in Prague, Czech Republic (PROGRES Q40), as well as by the project PERSONMED—Centre for the Development of Personalized Medicine in Age-Related Diseases, Reg. No. CZ.02.1.01-0.0-0.0-17_048-0007441, co-financed by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), the governmental budget of the Czech Republic, and grant INTER-ACTION LTAIN19007.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Medicine in Hradec Králové, Department of Neurology, Charles University in Prague, 500 05, Hradec Králové, Czech Republic

    Ondřej Dostál, Aleš Procházka, Oldřich Vyšata & Martin Vališ

  2. Department of Computing and Control Engineering, University of Chemistry and Technology in Prague, 166 28, Prague 6, Czech Republic

    Aleš Procházka, Ondřej Ťupa & Pavel Cejnar

  3. Czech Institute of Informatics, Robotics and Cybernetics, Czech Technical University in Prague, 160 00, Prague 6, Czech Republic

    Aleš Procházka

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  1. Ondřej Dostál
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  3. Oldřich Vyšata
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  4. Ondřej Ťupa
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Contributions

OD recorded all data and was responsible for their evaluation, AP was responsible for the mathematical and algorithmic tools, OV interpreted results from the neurological point of view, OT contributed to data preprocessing, PC contributed to evaluation of results, and MV was responsible for correct diagnostications of patients. All authors have read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Aleš Procházka.

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All procedures involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki Declaration and its later amendments.

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Dostál, O., Procházka, A., Vyšata, O. et al. Recognition of motion patterns using accelerometers for ataxic gait assessment. Neural Comput & Applic 33, 2207–2215 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00521-020-05103-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00521-020-05103-2

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