Shoes able to measure the full gait cycle

2021/11/11
The knitting team has produced shoes that are able to measure the full gait cycle without embedded electronics or sensors.

Footfalls and Heartbeats, based in Nottingham, UK, continues to innovate and push the boundaries of what is possible with knitted textile sensors.

 

In the past couple of weeks, its knitting team has produced shoes that are able to measure the full gait cycle without embedded electronics or sensors. The gait cycle is a measure of the stance and stride phase when either walking or running. These phases are noted by various points of contact under the foot.

Founder and director Simon McMaster said, “We can now easily measure when delicate toes leave the ground. Imagine measuring gait accurately in diabetic patients to predict the onset of foot ulcers, or the improvement made by people in rehabilitation after a stroke and the progress after a hip or knee replacement without lengthy and costly visits to outpatients. Knitting will next change the future of healthcare and rehabilitation as we make personalized, predictive and proactive data capture available to all.

Source: Innovation in Textiles