Publications by authors named "Kentaro Nakahara"

Knee joint function deterioration significantly impacts quality of life. This study developed estimation models for ten knee indicators using data from in-shoe motion sensors to assess knee movement during everyday activities. Sixty-six healthy young participants were involved, and multivariate linear regression was employed to construct the models.

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  • Knee osteoarthritis affects how people walk, particularly in older adults, and the use of wearable sensors for assessing gait in these patients has been insufficiently studied.
  • * The study involved 60 knee osteoarthritis patients and 20 healthy controls using shoes with embedded sensors while walking, collecting data to classify patient groups through machine learning techniques.
  • * Results showed that the sensors and machine learning could distinguish healthy individuals from patients, as well as classify different types of knee osteoarthritis with decent accuracy and sensitivity, offering a practical assessment method beyond laboratory environments.
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  • A distal radius fracture (DRF) is common in postmenopausal women and increases the risk of future fractures; this study examines how daily gait changes over time can predict fall risks.
  • 16 women with DRF and 28 matched controls were assessed at 4 weeks and 6 months post-fracture using in-shoe inertial measurement units to measure gait and physical strength.
  • Results showed initial gait impairments in the fracture group, including lower foot height and variable stride length, which improved over time, but they consistently had lower hand grip strength compared to healthy controls.
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Background: An inertial measurement unit is small and lightweight, allowing patient measurements without physical constraints. This study aimed to determine the differences in kinematic parameters during gait using an insole with a single inertial measurement unit in healthy controls and on both sides in patients with knee osteoarthritis.

Methods: Twenty patients with knee osteoarthritis and 13 age-matched controls were included in this study.

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Lower extremity strength (LES) is essential to support activities in daily living. To extend healthy life expectancy of elderly people, early detection of LES weakness is important. In this study, we challenge to develop a method for LES assessment in daily living via an in-shoe motion sensor (IMS).

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Background: Distal radius fractures (DRF) commonly occur in early postmenopausal females as the first fragility fracture. Although the incidence of DRF in this set of patients may be related to a lower ability to control their balance and gait, the detailed gait characteristics of DRF patients have not been examined.

Research Question: Is it possible to identify the physical and gait features of DRF patients using in-shoe inertial measurement unit (IMU) sensors at various gait speeds and to develop a machine learning (ML) algorithm to estimate patients with DRF using gait?

Methods: In this cross-sectional case control study, we recruited 28 postmenopausal females with DRF as their first fragility fracture and 32 age-matched females without a history of fragility fractures.

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Article Synopsis
  • Gait decline in older adults can increase the risk of falls, specifically in postmenopausal women who often experience distal radius fractures (DRF) as a common initial injury that can lead to additional fractures.
  • A study involving 27 women with DRF and 28 without utilized in-shoe inertial measurement units (IMUs) to monitor daily gait patterns and assess their link to fall risk.
  • Findings indicated that women with DRF exhibited reduced foot movement angles during walking, and a specific angle below 99.0 degrees could signal a higher risk of future fractures, suggesting the need for ongoing research to prevent these injuries through understanding gait characteristics.
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Frailty poses a threat to the daily lives of healthy older adults, highlighting the urgent need for technologies that can monitor and prevent its progression. Our objective is to demonstrate a method for providing long-term daily frailty monitoring using an in-shoe motion sensor (IMS). We undertook two steps to achieve this goal.

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Identifying the characteristics of fallers is important for preventing falls because such events may reduce quality of life. It has been reported that several variables related to foot positions and angles during gait (e.g.

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There is a strong need to assess frailty in daily living. Hand grip strength (HGS) has been proven to be a very important factor for identifying frailty, however it is always assessed under the guidance of facility clinicians. Our purpose is to demonstrate the possibility of providing HGS estimation by using foot-motion signals measured by an in-shoe motion sensor (IMS) embedded in an insole to achieve high precision HGS assessment in daily living.

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To expand the potential use of in-shoe motion sensors (IMSs) in daily healthcare or activity monitoring applications for healthy subjects, we propose a real-time temporal estimation method for gait parameters concerning bilateral lower limbs (GPBLLs) that uses a single IMS and is based on a gait event detection approach. To validate the established methods, data from 26 participants recorded by an IMS and a reference 3D motion analysis system were compared. The agreement between the proposed method and the reference system was evaluated by the intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC).

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An algorithm has been constructed for estimating minimum toe clearance (MTC), an important gait parameter previously proven to be a critical indicator of tripping risk. It uses data from a previously reported in-shoe motion sensor (IMS) for detecting gait events. First, candidate feature points in the IMS signal for use in detecting MTC events were identified.

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