My father is having trouble remembering how to walk properly after his surgery and I had this design idea I thought would be cool but am not sure if it's entirely feasible as I've never done a project similar to this. Basically, I want to have a few sensors embedded into different parts of an insole (heel, midsole, toe) that will sense when he puts pressure on them- and monitor if he is properly placing his heel down first and rolling to his toes. If he is not following the correct order of placing it'll buzz to alert him to be more aware. The biggest issue is I have no clue what sensor would perform the best for this. The one I initially was thinking of was a piezo disc but not sure if there is something better out there that will suit my idea more. Preferably cheap as well. Also, any general advice about actually prototyping and implementing this idea would be greatly appreciated! Thank you in advance.
You can buy shoe insole sensors designed for that purpose, and many physical therapists are already using them for gait analysis and retraining. You might look around to see if there are suitable therapists in your area.
One example of such a sensor:
Interesting. I worked with a major shoe manufacturer a couple of years ago on an internal project that did this. Had no idea that there was already something on the market.
Physical therapists had such gait analysis earlier than 2014, when I first encountered it after knee replacement surgery.
At that time the therapist was using a treadmill that had an array of force sensors somehow built in, but I don't how that was actually constructed, given the moving belt. Obviously the technology has a lot of potentially very useful applications.
Swimming pool physical rehab is kind on balance and pain while allowing full range if movement.
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