A Scoping Review on Minimum Foot Clearance Measurement: Sensing Modalities

Ghazaleh Delfi, Abdulrahman Al Bochi and Tilak Dutta
Additional contact information
Ghazaleh Delfi: KITE—Toronto Rehabilitation Institute, University Health Network, Toronto, ON M5G 2A2, Canada
Abdulrahman Al Bochi: KITE—Toronto Rehabilitation Institute, University Health Network, Toronto, ON M5G 2A2, Canada
Tilak Dutta: KITE—Toronto Rehabilitation Institute, University Health Network, Toronto, ON M5G 2A2, Canada

IJERPH, 2021, vol. 18, issue 20, 1-12

Abstract: Background: Falls are a major public health issue and tripping is the most common self-reported cause of outdoor falls. Minimum foot clearance (MFC) is a key parameter for identifying the probability of tripping. Optical motion capture systems are commonly used to measure MFC values; however, there is a need to identify alternative modalities that are better suited to collecting data in real-world settings. Objective: This is the first of a two-part scoping review. The objective of this paper is to identify and evaluate alternative measurement modalities to optical motion capture systems for measuring level-ground MFC. A companion paper identifies conditions that impact MFC and the range of MFC values individuals that these conditions exhibit. Methods: We searched four electronic databases, where peer-reviewed journals and conference papers reporting level-ground MFC characteristics were identified. The papers were screened by two independent reviewers for inclusion. The reporting was done in keeping with the PRISMA-ScR reporting guidelines. Results: From an initial search of 1571 papers, 17 papers were included in this paper. The identified technologies were inertial measurement units (IMUs) ( n = 10), ultrasonic sensors ( n = 2), infrared sensors (IR) ( n = 2), optical proximity sensors (OPS) ( n = 1), laser ranging sensors ( n = 1), and ultra-wideband sensors ( n = 1). From the papers, we extracted the sensor type, the analysis methods, the properties of the proposed system, and its accuracy and validation methods. Conclusions: The two most commonly used alternative modalities were IMUs and OPS. There was a lack of standardization among studies utilizing the same measurement modalities, as well as discrepancies in the methods used to assess performance. We provide a list of recommendations for future work to allow for more meaningful comparison between modalities as well as future research directions.

Keywords: minimum foot clearance; minimum toe clearance; older adults; falls; tripping; prevention (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/20/10848/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/20/10848/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:18:y:2021:i:20:p:10848-:d:657252

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().