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Gaze Pattern and Motion Control During Walking While Multitasking
KTH, School of Engineering Sciences in Chemistry, Biotechnology and Health (CBH), Biomedical Engineering and Health Systems. (KTH MoveAbility Lab)
2023 (English)Independent thesis Advanced level (degree of Master (Two Years)), 20 credits / 30 HE creditsStudent thesisAlternative title
Blickmönster och rörelsekontroll vid gång med samtidig multitasking (Swedish)
Abstract [en]

In Sweden almost three persons over the age of 65 years dies every day because of fall injuries. The overall societal costs of elderly fall accidents were estimated to to be 14 billion SEK, and if no action is taken this cost is estimated to increase to 22 billion SEK until 2050. The individual decrease in life of quality due to pain, decrease of independence and, for those still working, a decrease in income is of course also well worth considering.</p><p>It is well known that multitasking while walking will decrease attention on the surroundings and gait behaviour which increases the risk of falling. It is known that walking uses both sensory input and visual inputs to guide the motion. The visual input prepares the body to adjust itself before a step is taken to optimize the outcome. This study aimed to investigate the effect of multitasking on gaze strategies and gait performance. Five healthy adults walked over a setup of ramps and a step while performing three different levels of cognitive loading: just walking, walking and performing mental arithmetic’s and walking and scrolling on a mobile cell phone. The eye tracking device Pupil Core (Pupil Labs, Berlin, Germany) was used to capture the gaze points of the participants and Vicon Nexus together with force plates were used to capture data to compute the kinematics of the participants during the walking.</p><p>The results revealed that four out of four participants had a lower ratio of gaze fixations on objects of interest when scrolling on the phone compared to just walking, and three out of four participants had a lower ratio of gaze fixations on objects of interest when doing mental arithmetic’s compared to just walking. Simultaneously the gait parameters and kinematics changed in a way that might increase the risk of falling. Four out of four participants had a decrease in average stride length and average stride velocity when walking while scrolling on a phone and a decrease in average stride velocity when performing mental arithmetic’s compared to just walking. Three out of four participants had a decrease in average stride length when performing mental arithmetic’s compared to just walking. Since the participant number was low more studies are needed to confirm these results. The experimental design would benefit from adjustments to try to separate the effect on gaze behaviour between altered cognitive loading and altered gait pattern, but are a good base to use for further studies.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
2023. , p. 76
Series
TRITA-CBH-GRU ; 2023:008
Keywords [en]
Gaze behaviour, Gait, Multitasking, Eye tracker, Motion capture system
National Category
Medical Engineering
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:kth:diva-325025OAI: oai:DiVA.org:kth-325025DiVA, id: diva2:1745941
Subject / course
Medical Engineering
Educational program
Master of Science in Engineering - Medical Engineering
Supervisors
Examiners
Available from: 2023-05-12 Created: 2023-03-26 Last updated: 2024-09-23Bibliographically approved

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CiteExportLink to record
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