Gait analysis has historically been implemented in laboratory settings only with expensive instruments; yet, recently, efforts to develop and integrate wearable sensors into clinical applications have been made. A limited number of previous studies have been conducted to validate inertial measurement units (IMUs) for measuring ankle joint kinematics, especially with small movement ranges. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to validate the ability of available IMUs to accurately measure the ankle joint angles by comparing the ankle joint angles measured using a wearable device with those obtained using a motion capture system during running. Ten healthy subjects participated in the study. The intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) and standard error of measurement were calculated for reliability, whereas the Pearson coefficient correlation was performed for validity. The results showed that the day-to-day reliability was excellent (0.974 and 0.900 for sagittal and frontal plane, respectively), and the validity was good in both sagittal (r = 0.821, p < 0.001) and frontal (r = 0.835, p < 0.001) planes for ankle joints. In conclusion, we suggest that the developed device could be used as an alternative tool for the 3D motion capture system for assessing ankle joint kinematics.
Keywords: gait; inertial measurement units; kinematic; motion analysis; validation.