Gait Change Detection Using Parameters Generated from Microsoft Kinect Coordinates

This paper describes a method to convert Microsoft Kinect coordinates into gait parameters in order to detect a person's gait change. The proposed method can help quantify the progress of physical therapy. Microsoft Kinect, a popular platform for video games, was used to generate 25 joints to form a human skeleton, and then the proposed method converted the coordinates of selected Kinect joints into gait parameters such as spine tilt, hip tilt, and shoulder tilt, which were tracked over time. Sample entropy measure was then applied to quantify the variability of each gait parameter. Male and female subjects walked a three-meter path multiple times in initial experiments, and their walking patterns were recorded via the proposed Kinect device through the frontal plane. Time series of the gait parameters were generated for subjects with and without knee braces. Sample entropy was used to transform these time series into numerical values for comparison of these two conditions.