• Physical Therapy Rehabilitation Science
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.1-5
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• 2012

Objective: Dual-task walking deficits impact functional daily life, which often requires walking while performing simultaneous tasks such as talking, thinking or carrying an object. This study is to find out the latest trend of dual-task training's influence on ambulatory abilities of a stroke patient. Design: Systematic review of randomized controlled trials. Methods: This literature review was conducted in Pubmed and Sciencedirect with the follwing key words:stroke, cerebro-vascular accident, hemiplegia, gait, rehabilitation, exercise. 7 studies were chosen in findings by search tool. 3 studies were case study, 3 studies were cross sectional observational study and 1 study was randomized controlled trial. Results: It was found that stroke patients have difficulties in doing 2 motor tasks simultaneously and when they do 2 tasks, one is done in a naturally preferred activity areas. Moreover, when simply applying dual-tasks, the walking speed decreased. Meanwhile, when applying them through training, the speed increased. This showed the improvement of effective task-implementation abilities after dual-task training using task-integration models. Conclusions: In the beginning of the 2000s, dual-tasks were implemented by simply combining walking and cognition or exercise task, and the results of this study suggest that subjects with stroke have difficulty performing dual task. However, the latest trend is to let patients do the dual-task training by combining it with virtual reality. Therefore, dual task training could be performed in a safe in the environment such as virtual reality or augment reality.

• Journal of the Korean Association of Geographic Information Studies
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.150-160
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• 2012

The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between children's walking safety or risk of traffic accident and the physical environments around 20 public elementary schools in Changwon-si, Gyeongsangnam-do. Field surveys were conducted to assess the street-level objective and subjective walking environments. The GIS method was used for measuring the neighborhood-level land use patterns. Children's walking safety and risk of traffic accident data were collected from the 6,381 grade 5 to 6 students attending 18 elementary schools through the questionnaire survey. Correlation analysis showed that walking safety and risk of traffic accident of the elementary students were associated with the number of temporary or permanent obstacles on the sidewalk, traffic safety signs, driveway and street intersections, street lights, and percentage of detached housing area and road area on neighbourhood-level. This research will promote to help with constructing a safe routes to school and walking-friendly healthy community.

• 한국HCI학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2008.02a
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• pp.534-539
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• 2008

This paper is about intelligent hexapod robot for the support walking of the aged person. The robot using various sensors and small camera has various abilities of forward backward walking, turing left or right, control the speed of walking, avoiding the obstacles and detecting risky situation of fire or gas. To let the aged feel soft and safe walking, we used special servo motor and developed hexapod walking mechanism and effective algorithm.

• Korean Journal of Applied Biomechanics
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.35-43
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• 2017

Objective: The purpose of this study was to determine how gaze angle affects muscle activity and kinematic variables during treadmill walking and to offer scientific information for effective and safe treadmill training environment. Method: Ten male subjects who have no musculoskeletal disorder were recruited. Eight pairs of surface electrodes were attached to the right side of the body to monitor the upper trapezius (UT), rectus abdominis (RA), erector spinae (ES), rectus femoris (RF), bicep femoris (BF), tibialis anterior (TA), medialis gastrocnemius (MG), and lateral gastrocnemius (LG). Two digital camcorders were used to obtain 3-D kinematics of the lower extremity. Each subject walked on a treadmill with a TV monitor at three different heights (eye level; EL, 20% above eye level; AE, 20% below eye level; BE) at speed of 5.0 km/h. For each trial being analyzed, five critical instants and four phases were identified from the video recording. For each dependent variable, one-way ANOVA with repeated measures was used to determine whether there were significant differences among three different conditions (p<.05). When a significant difference was found, post hoc analyses were performed using the contrast procedure. Results: This study found that average and peak IEMG values for EL were generally smaller than the corresponding values for AE and BE but the differences were not statically significant. There were also no significant changes in kinematic variables among three different gaze angles. Conclusion: Based on the results of this study, gaze angle does not affect muscle activity and kinematic variables during treadmill walking. However, it is interesting to note that walking with BE may increase the muscle activity of the trapezius and the lower extremity. Moreover, it may hinder proper dorsiflexion during landing phase. Thus, it seems to reasonable to suggest that inappropriate gaze angle should be avoided in treadmill walking. It is obvious that increased walking speed may cause a significant changes in biomechanical parameters used in this study. It is recommended that future studies be conducted which are similar to the present investigation but using different walking speed.

• The Journal of Korean Institute of Communications and Information Sciences
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• v.36 no.3B
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• pp.287-296
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• 2011

The white stick mainly used for visually impaired person has difficulty in providing location information and effective countermeasures for emergency situations encountered during walking as well as detecting floating obstacles on the ground. In this paper, we propose a machine-to-machine based intelligent walking assistance system for safe and convenient walking of the visually impaired. The proposed system consists of a walking assistance stick used by the visually impaired and a server supporting multiple stick users in remote places through mobile communication networks. The stick equipped with ultrasonic sensors, GPS(global positioning system) receiver and vibrator not only detects floating obstacles, but also offers stick users with present location identification utilizing a text-to-voice conversion technology. Besides providing geographic information, the server notifies the emergency locations of users to guardian and aid agency, and it provides log information during walking such as the place, time and the number of accidents. Test results with a developed prototype system have shown that the system properly performs the functions and satisfies overall system performance.

• Journal of the Korean Recycled Construction Resources Institute
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• v.1 no.3
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• pp.246-254
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• 2013

This study is purposed to verify the safety of the floor of the children's playground using polyolefin foam waste and rubber paving. The critical fall height, walking suitability, long term physical fatigue expectation and slipperiness were tested. Polyolefin foam wastes in thickness of 30mm, 50mm and 70mm were prepared with paving the rubber paving materials in 12mm and 15mm thickness respectively. The test on the critical fall height was carried out according to KS G 5758:2009. The floor hardness test equipment (O-Y HMA) was used for the test on hardness of the floor from a viewpoint of walking suitability and fatigue. A portable slipperiness tester (ONO PPSM) was used for slipperiness test. It was revealed from the test that the floor made of the polyolefin foam waste and rubber paving were considerably safe from a viewpoint of impact absorption. With regards to the hardness of the floor, it was shown the excellent performance in the aspects of walking and fatigue for male. But it was not suitable with walking on the shoes(middle heels) for female. And they will be very fatigue if they were in a long time walking or standing. As far as the slipperiness is concerned, it was shown that it was comparatively safe for the ordinary motions even though the surface was wet.

• Journal of rehabilitation welfare engineering & assistive technology
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.147-156
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• 2017

The white cane, walking assistive device of visually impaired person, has disadvantages for acquiring the information by contacting obstacles directly and detecting low obstacle on the ground. Recently, new devices have been developing to solve these problems, but these were not widely used due to high price and appearance. Therefore, in this study, we developed two types of walking assistive shoes which were manufactured with infrared sensors, pressure sensors and vibrating motors. Two types of shoes were classified with single sensor (SS) and double sensor (DS) type according to the number of infrared sensor. To evaluate the effectiveness, we compared required time and number of collisions during walking with walking assistive shoes and white cane on obstacle area. As the results, required time was increased than white cane while number of collisions was decreased when walking with developed walking assistive shoes. In addition, required time and number of collisions was more reduced when using walking assistive device than white cane. Therefore, we suggests that developed walking assistive shoes can a great help to provide safe walking condition and reducing time to adapt new types of walking assistive shoes.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Landscape Architecture
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• v.39 no.2
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• pp.65-72
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• 2011

Since walking and physical activity are critical for older adults to maintain their health, it is important to provide neighborhood environments which encourage their walking in daily life. The purposes of the present study were to investigate walking activity patterns of older people in an urban setting and to identify environmental correlates with walking of older adults. This study examined spatial and temporal patterns of physical activities, environmental barriers and motivations, satisfaction levels and demands on the physical environment. In-depth interviews with older adults over age sixty residing in Seoul metropolitan areas revealed that most respondents have a positive perception on walking in daily life, and many of them walk regularly for their health. A primary purpose of walking for older adults was exercise for health rather than transportation. The study result demonstrated that parks and trails were the most preferred places for walking by older adults, and there is an association between frequency of walking participation and access or convenience to parks, traffic safety, and street lights. Most respondents were concerned about traffic safety when they walk in their neighborhoods due to traffic speeds and unsafe streets. Lack of separate sidewalks or benches, stairs and slopes were barriers to older adults' walking habits. This data suggests that the promotion of walking behavior among older adults, some level of public health action, and community support are needed to ensure safe physical environments within communities.

• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.21 no.6
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• pp.553-559
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• 2015

The purpose of this research is to develop a gait assistive device to enhance the gait stability and training efficiency of stroke patients. The configuration of this device is mainly composed of a motored wheel and a single cane whose lower end is attached to a motored wheel frame. A patient can feel haptic information from continuous ground contact from the wheel while walking through the grip handle. In addition, the wheeled cane can avoid using excessive use of the patient's upper limb for weight support and motivate the patient to use a paralyzed lower limb more actively. Moreover, the proposed device can provide intuitive and safe user interaction by integrating a force sensor and a tilt sensor equipped to the cane frame, and a switch sensor at the cane's handle. The admittance control has been implemented for the patient to change the walking speed intuitively by using the interaction forces at the handle. A hemi-paretic stroke patient participated in the walking assistive experiments as a pilot study to verify the effectiveness of the proposed haptic cane system. The results showed that the patient could improve walking speed and muscle activations during walking with a constant speed mode of the haptic cane. Moreover, the patient could maintain the preferred walking speeds and gait stability regardless of the magnitude of resistance forces with the admittance control mode of the haptic cane. The proposed robotic gait assistive device with a simple and intuitive mechanism can provide efficient gait training modes to stroke patients with high possibilities of widespread utilizations.

• Journal of Digital Convergence
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• v.14 no.6
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• pp.439-448
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• 2016

The population over 65 years old is 12.7% of total population in 2014 and Korea is going to be an aged society in the near future. The transportation vulnerable including the aged should be guaranteed in walking mobility under safe and comfortable environment for their socio-economic activities. For the era of fusion and convergence this paper investigated the characteristics of walking accidents related to the aged pedestrians and analyzed the aged-oriented walking factors with a reaction time and a walking speed at crosswalks in Yeosu. In the results, the crashes for the aged occur at 9.9% of total crashes and the fatalities of the aged are 40.3% of total fatalities in 2014. The 47.4% of the aged fatalities is also attributed to vehicle-to-pedestrian accidents. The 49.3% of all pedestrian fatalities occurs at the aged pedestrians with a very high proportion. The reaction time and walking speed for the aged were determined as the values located at the lower 15%-tile of the elderly physical ability. It is shown that the reaction time is 4.56 seconds and the walking speed is 0.76 m/s in the case of Yeosu. From two factors' standpoint, the walking environment at crosswalks in Yeosu is inappropriate for the aged.