Movement Symmetry Assessment by Bilateral Motion Data Fusion

Objective: A new approach, named bilateral motion data fusion, was proposed for the analysis of movement symmetry, which takes advantage of cross-information between both sides of the body and processes the unilateral motion data at the same time. Methods: This was accomplished using canonical correlation analysis and joint independent component analysis. It should be noted that human movements include many categories, which cannot be enumerated one by one. Therefore, the gait rhythm fluctuations of the healthy subjects and patients with neurodegenerative diseases were employed as an example for method illustration. In addition, our model explains the movement data by latent parameters in the time and frequency domains, respectively, which were both based on bilateral motion data fusion. Results: They show that our method not only reflects the physiological correlates of movement but also obtains the differential signatures of movement asymmetry in diverse neurodegenerative diseases. Furthermore, the latent variables also exhibit the potentials for sharper disease distinctions. Conclusion: We have provided a new perspective on movement analysis, which may prove to be a promising approach. Significance: This method exhibits the potentials for effective movement feature extractions, which might contribute to many research fields such as rehabilitation, neuroscience, biomechanics, and kinesiology.