Wearable activity trackers are newly emerging technologies with the anticipation for successfully supporting aging-in-place. Consumer-grade wearable increasingly ubiquitous in market, but attitudes toward, as well acceptance and voluntary use of, these older population poorly understood.The aim of this study was to assess usage Canadian community-dwelling adults, using potentially influential factors identified literature technology model.A mixed methods design used. A total 20 adults aged...

As an indicator of physical and cognitive functioning in community-dwelling older adults, there is increasing interest measuring life space, defined as the geographical area a person covers daily life. Typically measured through questionnaires, space can be challenging to assess amnestic dementia associated with Alzheimer's disease (AD). While global positioning system (GPS) technology has been suggested potential solution, remains lack data validating GPS-based methods measure cognitively...

Kinematic analysis of upper limb reaching provides insight into the central nervous system control movements. Until recently, kinematic examination motor has been limited to studies conducted in traditional research laboratories because motion capture equipment used for data collection is not easily portable and expensive. A recently developed markerless system, Leap Motion Controller (LMC), a inexpensive tracking device that allows recording 3D hand finger position. The main goal this study...

Although motion analysis is frequently employed in upper limb motor assessment (e.g. visually-guided reaching), they are resource-intensive and limited to laboratory settings. This study evaluated the reliability accuracy of a new markerless capture device, Leap Motion controller, measure finger position. Testing conditions that influence agreement between research-grade system were examined. Nine healthy young adults pointed 15 targets on computer screen under two conditions: (1) touching...

Motor imagery (MI)-based Brain-Computer Interfaces (BCIs) have shown promise in engaging the motor cortex for recovery. However, individual responses to MI-based BCIs are highly variable and relatively weak. Conversely, combined action observation (AO) (MI) paradigms demonstrated stronger compared AO or MI alone, along with enhanced cortical excitability. In this study, a novel BCI called Combined AO, MI, Steady-State Motion Visual Evoked Potential (SSMVEP) (CAMS) was proposed. CAMS designed...

Tracking and understanding human gait is an important step towards improving elderly mobility safety. Our research team developing a vision-based tracking system that estimates the 3D pose of wheeled walker user's lower limbs with depth sensor, Kinect, mounted on moving walker. tracker poses from images in coronal plane dynamic, uncontrolled environment. We employ probabilistic approach based particle filtering, measurement model works directly space another projected image space. Empirical...

Purpose: Despite the common use of rollators (four-wheeled walkers), understanding their effects on gait and balance is limited to laboratory testing rather than everyday use. This study evaluated utility an ambulatory assessment approach examine mobility in conditions compared a assessment. Methods: Standing walking with rollator was assessed three neurological rehabilitation in-patients under two conditions: (1) (i.e. forceplate, GaitRite), (2) while performing natural course within...

Background Heart rate variability (HRV) is used to assess cardiac health and autonomic nervous system capabilities. With the growing popularity of commercially available wearable technologies, opportunity unobtrusively measure HRV via photoplethysmography (PPG) an attractive alternative electrocardiogram (ECG), which serves as gold standard. PPG measures blood flow within vasculature using color intensity. However, does not directly HRV; it pulse (PRV). Previous studies comparing...

Abstract Background Falls in older adults are a critical public health problem. As means to assess fall risks, free-living digital biomarkers (FLDBs), including spatiotemporal gait measures, drawn from wearable inertial measurement unit (IMU) data have been investigated identify those at high risk. Although gait-related FLDBs can be impacted by intrinsic (e.g., impairment) and/or environmental walking surfaces) factors, their respective impacts not differentiated the majority of risk...

While assisting with balance is a primary reason for rollator use, few studies have examined how the upper limbs are used balance. This study examines limb contributions to control during rollator-assisted walking. We hypothesized that there would be an increased contribution, measured by mean vertical loading (Fz) and variation in frontal plane center-of-pressure (COPhigh), when walking challenged/impaired. Experiment 1 compared straight-line beam-walking young adults (n = 11). As...

The Alzheimer's Association has stimulated collaboration and scientific advancement in preventing treating disease by bringing together leading researchers developing technological approaches offering promise this area. This year, the collaborated with International Society to Advance Research Treatment organize first Technology & Dementia symposium at 2013 Conference Boston. Here, authors present some of projects discussed symposium, which address early diagnosis, monitoring, treatment, assistance.

Abstract Perceptual and visuomotor skills undergo considerable development from early childhood into adolescence; however, the concurrent maturation of these has not yet been examined. This study assessed function motion perception in a cross‐section 226 typically‐developing children between 4 16 years age. Participants were tested on three tasks hypothesized to engage dorsal visual stream: threading bead needle, marking dots using pen, discriminating form defined by contrast. Mature...

Falls are the leading cause of fatal and non-fatal injuries among seniors with serious costly consequences. Laboratory evidence supports view that impaired ability to execute compensatory balance reactions (CBRs) or near-falls is linked an increased risk falling. Therefore, as alternative commonly used fall assessment methods examining spatial-temporal parameters gait, this study focuses on development machine learning-based models detect multidirectional CBRs using wearable inertial...

In this paper, a method todetect environmental hazards related to fall risk using mobile vision system is proposed. First-person perspective videos are proposed provide objective evidence on cause and circumstances of perturbedbalance during activities daily living, targeted seniors. A classification problem was defined with 17 total classes potential risks, including slope changes (e.g., stairs, curbs, ramps) surfaces gravel, grass, concrete). Data collected chest-mounted GoPro camera....