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Virginia Tech

Evaluating Alternative Inertial Measurement Unit Locations on the Body for Slip Recovery Measures

Abstract

dc:description.abstract

Slips are a leading cause of injury among older adults. Specific slip recovery measures, including slip distance and peak slip speed, have been shown to increase significantly among fallers as compared to non-fallers. Often, slipping kinematics are measured using optoelectronic motion capture (OMC), requiring a laboratory setting and limiting data collection to experimentally-controlled conditions. Inertial measurement units (IMUs) show promise as a portable and wearable form of motion capture. This study had two objectives. First, we investigated whether foot and ankle IMU-derived slip recovery measures could be considered equivalent to the same OMC-derived measures. Second, we investigated if both participant-placed and researcher-placed IMU-derived slip recovery measures could be considered equivalent to the same OMC-derived measures. 30 older adults (ages 65-80) were exposed to a slip while wearing both IMUs and OMC markers. Slip distance and peak slip speed were measured by both systems and compared. Equivalence testing (α = 0.05) showed that IMUs placed on the foot and the ankle were equivalent to OMC in measuring these slip recovery measures. Furthermore, it was shown that researcher and participant-placed IMUs were equivalent (α = 0.05) to OMC in measuring these slip recovery measures. These results confirm that IMUs can be a viable substitute for OMC and have the potential to expand data capture to a real-world environment.

Degree

thesis:*
Name thesis:degree_name
Master of Science
Level thesis:degree_level
masters
Discipline thesis:degree_discipline
Industrial and Systems Engineering
Department dc:contributor.department
Industrial and Systems Engineering
Grantor dc:publisher
Virginia Tech
Year dc:date.issued
2024

Author and committee

dc:creator, dc:contributor.*
Author dc:creator
  • Morris, Michelle Ann
Chair dc:contributor.committeechair
  • Madigan, Michael L.
Committee members dc:contributor.committeemember
  • Lim, Sol Ie
  • Franck, Christopher Thomas

Subjects

dc:subject × 3

Rights

dc:rights
Statement dc:rights
  • In Copyright
Language dc:language.iso
en

Identifiers

dc:identifier.*
Dc Identifier Other
vt_gsexam:39656
OAI identifier oai:identifier
oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/118616

Chain of custody

source
Harvested from
Virginia Tech
Base URL
vtechworks.lib.vt.edu/oai/request
Last updated
2026-07-22
Source record
OAI-PMH GetRecord
citation

Morris, Michelle Ann. Evaluating Alternative Inertial Measurement Unit Locations on the Body for Slip Recovery Measures. masters thesis, Virginia Tech, 2024. https://hdl.handle.net/10919/118616