Neurological disorders may impair various aspects of walking ability that are needed for safe and independent walking. A comprehensive assessment addressing the key components of walking ability... Show moreNeurological disorders may impair various aspects of walking ability that are needed for safe and independent walking. A comprehensive assessment addressing the key components of walking ability may help to tailor management strategies to the individual needs of each patient. The aspect of walking adaptability is usually not assessed in clinical tests, but seems important for safe walking and is related to fall risk. The Interactive Walkway is a promising, unobtrusive, low-cost and comprehensive assessment tool of walking ability in daily practice. It is a walkway instrumented with an integrated multi-Kinect v2 set-up for markerless registration of 3D full-body kinematics. Besides performing quantitative gait assessments, the Interactive Walkway may also be used to assess walking adaptability. The Interactive Walkway is equipped with a projector to augment the entire walkway with (gait-dependent) visual context, such as obstacles, sudden-stop-and-start cues and stepping targets, demanding step adjustments under time pressure demands in a safe manner. The aim of this thesis was to examine if 1) this approach can provide a valid assessment of walking ability and, if so, 2) if it has clinical potential in the assessment of walking ability and fall risk in patients with stroke and Parkinson’s Disease. Show less
