A performance comparison of accelerometry-based step detection algorithms on a large, non-laboratory sample of healthy and mobility-impaired persons.

Accelerometers are frequently used for activity assessment and as reference devices for counting steps. Their performance on healthy subjects' data is good, but there are doubts as to their applicability on elderly and mobility-impaired subjects. Furthermore, only few step detection algorithms have been published so far, and their performance has not been evaluated on a large, non-laboratory sample.