The challenges of utilising inertial sensors for public health measurement. A useful future commodity

The cost of poor health has in recent years caused an extensive economic burden to the state as expensive laboratory measurement methods are heavily relied upon. As we make effort to lower this cost researchers attempt to identify ecological real world techniques, which can monitor health indices on a day to day basis, whilst still being cost benefit. One such technique which has been identified has been the use of low cost inertial sensors such as accelerometers, gyroscopes and combined units. These units have been successfully utilised in home rehabilitation methods, in silver age technologies to detect falls (Nyan et al. 2008) and extensively in the measurement of physical activity levels across all age groups. Due to their success, nowadays a large market of inertial sensors are available to the researcher or diagnostician with various types on offer in terms of size, site of attachment, data collection type and data output. However, this enhanced choice therefore leads to an increased need to investigate on a sensor-to-sensor basis how feasible specific inertial sensors are when applied to longitudinal data collection.