• Nicole A Capela, Edward D Lemaire, and Natalie Baddour.
• Ottawa Hospital Research Institute, Ottawa, Canada. ncapela@uottawa.ca.
• J Neuroeng Rehabil. 2015 Feb 20; 12: 19.

BackgroundThe 6-minute walk test (6MWT: the maximum distance walked in 6 minutes) is used by rehabilitation professionals as a measure of exercise capacity. Today's smartphones contain hardware that can be used for wearable sensor applications and mobile data analysis. A smartphone application can run the 6MWT and provide typically unavailable biomechanical information about how the person moves during the test.MethodsA new algorithm for a calibration-free 6MWT smartphone application was developed that uses the test's inherent conditions and smartphone accelerometer-gyroscope data to report the total distance walked, step timing, gait symmetry, and walking changes over time. This information is not available with a standard 6MWT and could help with clinical decision-making. The 6MWT application was evaluated with 15 able-bodied participants. A BlackBerry Z10 smartphone was worn on a belt at the mid lower back. Audio from the phone instructed the person to start and stop walking. Digital video was independently recorded during the trial as a gold-standard comparator.ResultsThe average difference between smartphone and gold standard foot strike timing was 0.014 ± 0.015 s. The total distance calculated by the application was within 1 m of the measured distance for all but one participant, which was more accurate than other smartphone-based studies.ConclusionsThese results demonstrated that clinically relevant 6MWT results can be achieved with typical smartphone hardware and a novel algorithm.

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