Increased prevalence of obesity (BMI ≥ 30 kg/m²) is a national health concern. Individuals with higher BMIs are exposed to a greater risk of mobility impairments and falls, and have limitations in daily activities compared to individuals with lower BMIs. My research in this area has focused on creating a quantitative measure of dynamic balance in individuals with high BMIs, using wearable inertial sensors in a study of 20 individuals with BMIs ranging from 30 to 63 kg/m². While still in progress, the results of this research will be used to develop a real-time automatic detection algorithm identifying poor balance or loss of balance in high-BMI individuals.
This project was internally funded through MCubed2 project from the University of Michigan.
Related Publications and Presentations
- Lim, S., Luo, Y., & D’Souza, C. (in progress, 2018). Task Performance and Stepping Adaptation during Obstacle Clearance Task in Individuals with High Body Mass Index.
- Lim, S., Luo, Y., Ebert, S., Johns, M., Varban, O., & D’Souza, C. (2018). Preliminary Study of Obstacle Clearance and Compensatory Movements in Individuals with High Body Mass Index. Proceedings of the 62nd Annual Meeting of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society (HFES), Philadelphia, PA, October 2018. Link
- Luo, Y., Lim, S., Futerman, S., Grider, J., Ebert, S., Jones., M., Varban, O., & D’Souza, C. (2018). Dynamic Balance and Measures of Obstacle Clearance Performance in Individuals with High Body Mass Index. Poster presented at the Education and Research Center (ERC) Regional Research Symposium, University of Illinois at Chicago, Illinois, March 2018. Link
- Lim, S., Ebert, S., Malik, L., Luo, Y., Futerman, S., Lin, S., D’Souza, C., Jones, M., & Varban, O. (2017). Novel Methods to Track Changes in Health and Function of Individuals with High Body Mass Index (BMI). Poster presented at the MCubed Symposium 2017, Ann Arbor, MI, November 2017. Link
