Development of a wearable mobility monitoring system

Abstract

Monitoring mobility at home and in the community, and understanding the environment and context in which mobility occurred, is essential for rehabilitation medicine. This thesis introduces a Wearable Mobility Monitoring System (WMMS) for objective measurement of community mobility. This prototype WMMS was created using a smartphone-based approach that allowed for an all-in-one WMMS. The wearable system is worn freely on a person's belt, like a normal phone. The WMMS was designed to monitor a user's mobility state and to take a photograph when a change-of-state was detected. These photographs are used to identify the context of mobility events (i.e., using an elevator, walking up/down stairs, type of walking surface). Mobility evaluation using the proposed WMMS was performed on five able-bodied subjects. System performance for detecting changes-of-state and the ability to identify context from the photographs was analyzed. The WMMS demonstrated good potential for community mobility monitoring.