Abstract
With the aging of Japanese society, the number of people facing problems with their feet has grown rapidly. Many of these people have comorbidities that affect their blood vessels, such as arteriosclerosis obliterans and diabetes. However, the major cause of such problems is a reduction in walking function or its loss altogether. Medical facilities use a range of equipment to assess patients’ walking abilities from the standpoint of biomechanics. However, no further assessments are conducted after patients have returned home. With advances in the“internet of things”and information and communication technologies, it has become possible to conduct analyses of patients’ walking function and ability to perform activities of daily living. The use of such equipment means that information can be obtained not only after individuals become ill, but throughout their daily lives, which allows medical care to be tailored to the patient. Deploying technology to the domestic setting through partnerships between medical practitioners and biomedical engineers has resulted in clear improvements in patients’ way of life and walking abilities.
