Walking Ability Assessment in Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo: ϕ-Bonacci Gait Number and Harmonic Gait Variability as Rehabilitation Measures

The latest research directions have provided a theoretical foundation to the experimental evidence that human walking owns time-harmonic motor patterns: the golden ratio is crucially involved to equal the ratio between the durations of two consecutive walking gait sub-phases within a generalized Fibonacci sequence. The corresponding gait index, named ϕ-bonacci gait number—even involving an intriguing experimental conjecture about the position of the foot relative to the tibia during the double support sub-phase—, is able to fully capture the most reliable and objective (quantitative) outcome measures (and their distortions in pathological subjects) of recursivity, asymmetry, consistency, and self-similarity (harmonicity) of the gait cycle. This paper provides experimental results on healthy and pathological gaits related to Benign Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo (BPPV). They totally support the aforementioned theoretical derivations, especially in the field of walking ability rehabilitation through canalith reposition manoeuvres. Furthermore, the newly introduced concept of (Heart-Rate-Variability-emulating) Harmonic Gait Variability (HGV)—used as a quantitative measure of the distance of the subject’s walking from a corresponding harmonic avatar—further, originally, illustrates in a quantitative fashion, rehabilitation effects.