[The Answer Lies in the Body’s Natural Healing Power] “Can you tell someone’s health just by looking at the way they walk?”... What if AI gait analysis were combined with Korean medicine treatment?

[Financial News] Technology that uses AI to analyze people’s everyday walking patterns has recently been attracting attention. Sensors installed in the home detect movement, and AI identifies periods of walking and measures gait speed, stride length, and the time taken per step. The key difference from a pedometer, which records physical activity, is that it can examine “how someone walks differently from their usual pattern.” This technology could offer a new way to manage health, particularly for older adults who may experience declining physical function or gait disorders.
Conventional gait tests at hospitals assess physical function over a set distance and period of time. But tests conducted in a clinic show a person’s condition only at a particular moment, making it difficult to capture changes in their walking pattern over days or months. By contrast, using everyday gait data collected by AI makes it possible to see whether small changes recur, measured against a person’s usual walking speed and stride length.
A study published in the international journal Innovation in Aging also pointed to the potential uses of this technology. Researchers installed sensors in the homes of 75 adults aged 65 and older and collected gait data for one year. The gait speed, stride length, and other measures analyzed by AI showed a significant association with the results of physical-function tests conducted by medical professionals.
Everyday gait analysis can be useful not only for assessing older adults’ overall physical function but also for managing musculoskeletal conditions. That is because conditions affecting the knees or back often first show up as changes in the way a person walks. People with knee osteoarthritis may find it painful to bear weight, causing them to walk more slowly or change their gait. A common symptom of spinal stenosis is numbness or pain in the legs while walking, often requiring the person to stop and rest.
Gait data could also provide a new way to assess treatment outcomes. Currently, the effectiveness of treatment for musculoskeletal conditions is assessed mainly through pain scores or functional questionnaires completed by patients themselves. Adding everyday gait data could make it possible to measure how much a person’s actual walking pattern has recovered after treatment. This could provide evidence of how well non-surgical treatments work in daily life, particularly for conditions such as spinal stenosis, for which conservative treatment is often considered before surgery.
If this kind of assessment were added, it could provide a more comprehensive picture of the effects of Korean medicine treatment, a leading treatment approach for spinal stenosis. In a randomized controlled trial by researchers at Jaseng Hospital of Korean Medicine, recently published in the international journal Integrative Medicine Research, pharmacopuncture was compared with conventional conservative treatment in 96 patients with spinal stenosis. At week 13, the primary pain score in the pharmacopuncture group had decreased by 2.7 points more than in the control group, and measures of physical function and quality of life also improved. These effects were maintained through week 53.
When it comes to health management for older adults, what matters is not just how much they walk. It is also important to monitor how much slower their walking has become compared with their usual pace and how their stride length has changed. As AI-based gait analysis advances, it could help detect small changes in physical function early and assess how well people have recovered in their daily lives after treatment.
/Director of Daegu Jaseng Hospital of Korean Medicine Lee Jae-gyun 


[email protected] Medical Correspondent Jeong Myeong-jin Reporter