ADRESTIA: A Durable Ruggedized System of IMUs to Assess Gait and Balance in Field Environments

Providing timely physical and mental health support to Servicemembers and determining their readiness for duty after mTBI is crucial to maintaining mobility, survivability, lethality, and adaptability of our US Armed Forces. While research indicates that accelerometry and the use of wearable Inertial Measurement Units (IMUs) to assess objective measures of postural and dynamic stability is very promising, the available commercial wearable IMUs are not designed to tolerate austere environmental conditions, such as extreme temperatures, impact, vibration, and wet conditions. Furthermore, wearable sensors generally rely on non-secure wireless communications and do not satisfy information assurance and cybersecurity standards of military. ADRESTIA is a modular system of multiple ruggedized IMUs, , a data storage and processing unit (DPU), accompanied by flexible algorithms and software that helps clinicians effectively assess service members’ performance in a variety of simple to complex balance assessment tasks. As a result, ADRESTIA can be used to support return to duty (RTD) decision making by providing objective assessment of service members’ recovery after concussion in a field environment.