Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Evaluation of Power-Based Stair Climb Performance via Inertial Measurement Units

  • Conference paper
  • First Online:
Biomedical Engineering Systems and Technologies (BIOSTEC 2018)

Part of the book series: Communications in Computer and Information Science ((CCIS,volume 1024))

Abstract

The stair climbing test (SCT) is a standard geriatric assessment to measure lower-limb strength being one of the essential components of physical function. To detect functional decline as early as possible, regular assessments of mobility, balance, and strength are necessary. Inertial measurement units (IMU) are a promising technology for flexible and unobtrusive measurements of the SCTs. We introduce an automated assessment via IMUs in a study of 83 participants aged 70–87 (75.64 ± 4,17) years. The activity of stair ascending has been automatically classified via a k-nearest-neighbor classifier and the performance was evaluated regarding the power. Therefore, we considered both, stair climb average power and peak power. Stair ascending was correctly classified in 93% of the cases with a mean deviation of 2.35% of the average power value in comparison to conventional measurements. Additionally, we showed the medical sensitivity of our system regarding the detection of transitions towards the frail status in controlled conditions and also confirmed the general suitability of automated stair climb analyses in unsupervised home-assessments.

S. Fudickar, A. Hein—Contributed equally.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 39.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 54.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

References

  1. Gill, T.M., Baker, D.I., Gottschalk, M., Peduzzi, P.N., Allore, H., Byers, A.: A program to prevent functional decline in physically frail, elderly persons who live at home. N. Engl. J. Med. 347(14), 1068–1074 (2002)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  2. Hellmers, S., et al.: Towards a minimized unsupervised technical assessment of physical performance in domestic environments. In: Pervasive Health (2017)

    Google Scholar 

  3. Clegg, A., Young, J., Iliffe, S., Rikkert, M.O., Rockwood, K.: Frailty in elderly people. Lancet 381(9868), 752–762 (2013)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  4. Hellmers, S., et al.: Stair climb power measurements via inertial measurement units - towards an unsupervised assessment of strength in domestic environments. In: Proceedings of the 11th International Joint Conference on Biomedical Engineering Systems and Technologies, HEALTHINF, INSTICC, vol. 5, pp. 39–47. SciTePress (2018)

    Google Scholar 

  5. Frenken, T., et al.: Novel approach to unsupervised mobility assessment tests: field trial for aTUG. In: 2012 6th International Conference on Pervasive Computing Technologies for Healthcare (PervasiveHealth), pp. 131–138. IEEE (2012)

    Google Scholar 

  6. Cruz-Jentoft, A.J., et al.: Sarcopenia: European consensus on definition and diagnosisreport of the european working group on sarcopenia in older people. Age Ageing 39(4), 412–423 (2010)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. Bean, J.F., Kiely, D.K., LaRose, S., Alian, J., Frontera, W.R.: Is stair climb power a clinically relevant measure of leg power impairments in at-risk older adults? Arch. Phys. Med. Rehabil. 88(5), 604–609 (2007)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  8. Nightingale, E.J., Pourkazemi, F., Hiller, C.E.: Systematic review of timed stair tests. J. Rehabil. Res. Dev. 51(3), 335–50 (2014)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  9. Klass, M., Baudry, S., Duchateau, J.: Age-related decline in rate of torque development is accompanied by lower maximal motor unit discharge frequency during fast contractions. J. Appl. Physiol. 104(3), 739–746 (2008)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  10. Kidde, J., Marcus, R., Dibble, L., Smith, S., LaStayo, P.: Regional muscle and whole-body composition factors related to mobility in older individuals: a review. Physiotherapy Canada 61(4), 197–209 (2009)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  11. Foldvari, M., et al.: Association of muscle power with functional status in community-dwelling elderly women. J. Gerontol. Ser. A: Biol. Sci. Med. Sci. 55(4), M192–M199 (2000)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  12. Reid, K.F., Fielding, R.A.: Skeletal muscle power: a critical determinant of physical functioning in older adults. Exerc. Sport Sci. Rev. 40(1), 4 (2012)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  13. Zheng, E., Chen, B., Wang, X., Huang, Y., Wang, Q.: On the design of a wearable multi-sensor system for recognizing motion modes and sit-to-stand transition. Int. J. Adv. Robot. Syst. 11(2), 30 (2014)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  14. Khan, A.M., Lee, Y.K., Lee, S.Y., Kim, T.S.: A triaxial accelerometer-based physical-activity recognition via augmented-signal features and a hierarchical recognizer. IEEE Trans. Inf Technol. Biomed. 14(5), 1166–1172 (2010)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  15. Fida, B., Bernabucci, I., Bibbo, D., Conforto, S., Schmid, M.: Pre-processing effect on the accuracy of event-based activity segmentation and classification through inertial sensors. Sensors 15(9), 23095–23109 (2015)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  16. Shoaib, M., Bosch, S., Incel, O.D., Scholten, H., Havinga, P.J.: Fusion of smartphone motion sensors for physical activity recognition. Sensors 14(6), 10146–10176 (2014)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  17. Sun, L., Zhang, D., Li, B., Guo, B., Li, S.: Activity recognition on an accelerometer embedded mobile phone with varying positions and orientations. In: Yu, Z., Liscano, R., Chen, G., Zhang, D., Zhou, X. (eds.) UIC 2010. LNCS, vol. 6406, pp. 548–562. Springer, Heidelberg (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-16355-5_42

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  18. Fareed, U.: Smartphone sensor fusion based activity recognition system for elderly healthcare. In: Proceedings of the 2015 Workshop on Pervasive Wireless Healthcare, pp. 29–34. ACM (2015)

    Google Scholar 

  19. Anguita, D., Ghio, A., Oneto, L., Parra, X., Reyes-Ortiz, J.L.: Human activity recognition on smartphones using a multiclass hardware-friendly support vector machine. In: Bravo, J., Hervás, R., Rodríguez, M. (eds.) IWAAL 2012. LNCS, vol. 7657, pp. 216–223. Springer, Heidelberg (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-35395-6_30

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  20. Lester, J., Choudhury, T., Borriello, G.: A practical approach to recognizing physical activities. In: Fishkin, K.P., Schiele, B., Nixon, P., Quigley, A. (eds.) Pervasive 2006. LNCS, vol. 3968, pp. 1–16. Springer, Heidelberg (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/11748625_1

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  21. Stacoff, A., Diezi, C., Luder, G., Stüssi, E., Kramers-de Quervain, I.A.: Ground reaction forces on stairs: effects of stair inclination and age. Gait Posture 21(1), 24–38 (2005)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  22. Bean, J., et al.: Weighted stair climbing in mobility-limited older people: a pilot study. J. Am. Geriatr. Soc. 50(4), 663–670 (2002)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  23. Regterschot, G.R.H., Folkersma, M., Zhang, W., Baldus, H., Stevens, M., Zijlstra, W.: Sensitivity of sensor-based sit-to-stand peak power to the effects of training leg strength, leg power and balance in older adults. Gait Posture 39(1), 303–307 (2014)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  24. Suzuki, T., Bean, J.F., Fielding, R.A.: Muscle power of the ankle flexors predicts functional performance in community-dwelling older women. J. Am. Geriatr. Soc. 49(9), 1161–1167 (2001)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  25. Perry, J., Burnfield, J.M.: Gait Analysis: Normal and Pathological Function, 2nd edn. SLACK Incorporated (2010)

    Google Scholar 

  26. Novak, A.C., Reid, S.M., Costigan, P.A., Brouwer, B.: Stair negotiation alters stability in older adults. Lower Extremity Rev. 2(10), 47–51 (2010)

    Google Scholar 

  27. Dietz, B.: PNF in Lokomotion: Let’s Sprint, Let’s Skate. Springer, Heidelberg (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-27666-8. ISBN 9783642276668

    Book  Google Scholar 

  28. Hellmers, S., et al.: Technology supported geriatric assessment. In: Wichert, R., Mand, B. (eds.) Ambient Assisted Living. ATSC, pp. 85–100. Springer, Cham (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-52322-4_6

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  29. Gozick, B., Subbu, K.P., Dantu, R., Maeshiro, T.: Magnetic maps for indoor navigation. IEEE Trans. Instrum. Meas. 60(12), 3883–3891 (2011)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  30. Li, B., Harvey, B., Gallagher, T.: Using barometers to determine the height for indoor positioning. In: 2013 International Conference on Indoor Positioning and Indoor Navigation (IPIN), pp. 1–7. IEEE (2013)

    Google Scholar 

  31. Fudickar, S., Lindemann, A., Schnor, B.: Threshold-based fall detection on smart phones. In: Proceedings of HEALTHINF 2014–7th International Conference on Health Informatics, Part of 7th International Joint Conference on Biomedical Engineering Systems and Technologies, BIOSTEC, pp. 303–309 (2014)

    Google Scholar 

  32. Fried, L.P., et al.: Frailty in older adults: evidence for a phenotype. J. Gerontol. Ser. A: Biol. Sci. Med. Sci. 56(3), M146–M157 (2001)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  33. Nadeau, S., McFadyen, B.J., Malouin, F.: Frontal and sagittal plane analyses of the stair climbing task in healthy adults aged over 40 years: what are the challenges compared to level walking? Clin. Biomech. 18(10), 950–959 (2003)

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

The study is funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (Project No. 01EL1422D). The study has been approved by the appropriate ethics committee (ethical vote: Hannover Medical School No. 6948) and conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Carl von Ossietzky University Oldenburg, Oldenburg, Germany

    Sandra Hellmers, Sandra Lau, Rebecca Diekmann, Lena Dasenbrock, Tobias Kromke, Sebastian Fudickar & Andreas Hein

  2. Peter L. Reichertz Institute for Medical Informatics, Hannover, Germany

    Lena Dasenbrock

  3. Heidelberg University, Agaplesion Bethanien Krankenhaus Heidelberg, Heidelberg, Germany

    Jürgen M. Bauer

Authors
  1. Sandra Hellmers
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Sandra Lau
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Rebecca Diekmann
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Lena Dasenbrock
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  5. Tobias Kromke
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  6. Jürgen M. Bauer
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  7. Sebastian Fudickar
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  8. Andreas Hein
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Sandra Hellmers .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Sao Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil

    Alberto Cliquet Jr.

  2. University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Canada

    Sheldon Wiebe

  3. College of Charleston, Charleston, SC, USA

    Paul Anderson

  4. University of Rome Tor Vergata, Rome, Italy

    Giovanni Saggio

  5. Aberystwyth University, Aberystwyth, UK

    Reyer Zwiggelaar

  6. LIBPhys, New University of Lisbon, Lisbon, Portugal

    Hugo Gamboa

  7. Instituto de Telecomunicações and Instituto Superior Técnico, Lisbon, Portugal

    Ana Fred

  8. Madeira Interactive Technologies Institute, Universidade da Madeira, Funchal, Portugal

    Sergi Bermúdez i Badia

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2019 Springer Nature Switzerland AG

About this paper

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this paper

Hellmers, S. et al. (2019). Evaluation of Power-Based Stair Climb Performance via Inertial Measurement Units. In: Cliquet Jr., A., et al. Biomedical Engineering Systems and Technologies. BIOSTEC 2018. Communications in Computer and Information Science, vol 1024. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-29196-9_13

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-29196-9_13

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-29195-2

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-29196-9

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation