Wearable Mid-Activity Measurement of Lower Limb Electrical Bioimpedance Estimates Vertical Ground Reaction Force Features

In recent years, wearable mid-activity electrical bioimpedance (EBI) sensing has been used to non-invasively track changes in edema and swelling levels within human joints. While the physiological origin of the changes in mid-activity EBI measurements have been demonstrated, EBI waveform patterns during activity have not been explored. In this work, we present a novel approach to extract waveform features from EBI measurements during gait to estimate the changes in vertical ground reaction forces (vGRF) corresponding to fatigue. Wearable EBI and vGRF data were measured from six healthy subjects during an asymmetric fatiguing protocol. For the exercised leg, the first peak of vGRF corresponding to the initial phase of simple support, decreased significantly and the loading rate increased significantly between the beginning and the end of the protocol. No significant change in these parameters were observed for the control leg. The first peak of vGRF and loading rate during the protocol (15 walking sessions) were correlated to the multi-frequency EBI features with mean Pearson's r=0.81 and r=0.777, respectively. The results of this proof-of-concept study demonstrate the feasibility of estimating biomechanical parameters during activity with wearable EBI. Clinical Relevance - The proposed wearable system and associated signal processing could enable convenient tracking of changes in vGRFs during daily living activities, allowing physiotherapists and doctors to remotely monitor the progress and adherence of their patients and thereby reducing the number of clinical visits.