A low-cost Kinect™ for Windows® v2-based gait analysis system A feasibility study with healthy subjects

The high cost and required space of current gait analysis and instrumented walkway systems could explain their limited use in the clinical setting. We hypothesized that a Kinect v2-based system would overcome these limitations and enable reliable estimation of gait characteristics. To test this, we have evaluated the most widespread used spatiotemporal (stride time, length, and velocity) and kinematic variables (hip and knee flexion) of 257 healthy individuals divided in different decades of age (from 10 to 80 years old) with a low-cost Kinect-v2 gait analysis system. The experimental system was able to evidence age-related differences in spatiotemporal and kinematic parameters (previously described using laboratory-grade systems), which support the use of the Kinect v2-based system as a promising low-cost alternative for gait analysis.