How does digital gait analysis using phone accelerometers enhance data collection over traditional methods?
Answer
It provides far richer, ecologically valid data during daily walks.
Traditional gait analysis relied on controlled lab environments using specialized hardware like instrumented walkways to measure parameters like stride length. The digital equivalent leverages the accelerometer present in a standard phone during a person's normal, daily activities, such as walking around their neighborhood. This provides data that is ecologically valid, meaning it reflects the patient's true behavior outside the lab, and far richer because it captures data continuously across varied terrains, speeds, and times of day, offering a much more comprehensive picture of motor function than intermittent lab testing.
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