Identifying Activities of Daily Living (ADLs) using “Smart Socks”

Abstract

For purposes of controlling the risks of physical disorders and associated costs, a physically active lifestyle is one of the most important current goals for health promotion. To achieve this goal, though, a critical requirement is identifying physical inactivity and facilitating a more active lifestyle. We completed a lab-based experiment to evaluate the accuracy of commercially-available smart socks (SSs) in recognizing several basic postures (sitting, standing, and lying down) and diverse physical activities. The SSs were able to accurately (88.7%) detect both the type of activity and discriminate between sedentary behaviors vs. other activities of daily living. SS technology thus has potential as a low-cost activity monitoring tool, such as for health promotion and monitoring.