Here at Gainesville Prosthetics, we place a high level of importance on data collection. Data collection comes in many forms, but each of them allows your practitioner to have concrete evidence with which to evaluate your health and your progress with your prosthesis.
One of these methods of data collection comes as the Motio StepWatch. The Motio StepWatch is a device placed on to the "ankle" of your prosthesis that collects data over a typical 7 day period. This data includes step numbers, step length, varying cadence or walking speed, activity levels, and countless other valuable sets of data that will help your clinician determine the most accurate K level for you.
Typical gait analysis and outcome measures are reliant on the knowledge and subjective viewpoint of your clinician. While your clinician is an expert in the prosthetic field, they are still human and susceptible to mistakes or missing key information. This is no fault of the clinician, but simply emphasizes the fact that all patients are unique and therefore, have their own unique strengths and weaknesses that can sometimes be difficult to identify in the often short window your clinician has with you.
Rather than relying on brief and potentially biased outcome measures or gait analysis, in which many outside factors can have an affect - even simply the fact that the patient is aware they are being analyzed - and drastically change the results of the outcome measure, many clinicians turn to data collection and analysis. Data collection through methods such as video gait analysis and the Motio StepWatch provide objective, reference-able data that is free from human error or subjectivity. Again, this is not to say your clinician is incapable of providing an accurate analysis, it simply reinforces the fact that objectivity is more valuable than subjectivity. Objective data collection and analysis provides clinicians with concrete evidence they can use to support their assessment, and this evidence is invaluable when it comes to situations such as sending reports to insurance agencies.
The next time your clinician provides a chance to gather objective data regarding your health and prosthesis, strongly consider participating. The benefits your clinician can provide by working off of tangible evidence is invaluable to you as a prosthetic user.
See an example of the data collection report: