Monitoring Reactive Stepping Incidences With Integrated Floor Vibration Sensors for Smart,Realtime Fall Risk Assessments

Abstract

Floor vibration technologies have emerged as a potential approach for accurately detecting temporal characteristics of footstep-induced floor vibrations. The ability to detect reactive balance steps remotely using floor vibration sensors could provide healthcare professionals with critical information on ‘near-miss’ events, potentially preventing serious falls. The purpose of this exploratory pilot research was to determine the feasibility of using in-floor-mounted vibration sensors to differentiate between volitional walking and reactive steps in a commercial building. The footstep floor vibration temporal characteristics of one healthy 26-year-old male during normal and fast walking paces were compared to those induced by backward reactive balance steps. Vibration characteristics were compared with foot durations calculated from video data. The preliminary findings reveal clear differences in step duration between reactive and volitional stepping, which were accurately detected by the sensors (average error: 2.67%). These findings show promising potential for vibrational signatures to detect reactive stepping, warranting further research.