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Assistive Technology and Gait

FALL-E: A Robotic Walker to Study Balance

Although walkers are often prescribed to help with stability, there are associations with falls while using them. A possible reason for walkers’ association with fall risk is the environmental perturbations created by the walker bumping into objects in the environment or rolling over cables or different terrains on the ground. By using a robotic walker that has been modified to provide environmental perturbations via force feedback we can perturb balance in a controlled laboratory setting. In addition, we have load cells in the leg of the walker to measure force and can play feedback to the user of how much force they apply to the walker. The research question is: how does appropriate force and magnitude of loading on a walker change stability in response to perturbation? Answering this question could describe why there exists an elevated fall risk in assistive device users, inform the design of protocols to test multisensory integration in balance particularly in older adults, and lead to better design criteria for assistive devices.