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What do circular leg movements tell us?Smartphone-based foot skill and postural control evaluation 
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Lower-limb motor control is closely related to health and fall risk, yet its quantitative assessment typically requires expensive and specialized equipment. Here, we present a simple method for evaluating foot dominance and postural stability using the variability of circular leg movements measured with a smartphone. Participants performed fifteen-second circular leg movements while the smartphone recorded acceleration data from which movement variability was quantified. The variability measure showed good agreement with conventional measures of postural stability obtained using dedicated equipment. Compared with the conventional approach, the proposed method is low-cost and halves measurement time. Our work contributes to the development of practical techniques for estimating motor function from everyday body movements, supporting a future in which individuals can monitor physical ability, health status, and fall risk using widely available devices.
[1] A. Takagi, N. Abekawa, “Variability of circular leg movements is related to footedness and postural stability,” IEEE Transactions on Neural Systems and Rehabilitation Engineering, Vol. 34, pp. 198–204, 2026.
Atsushi Takagi, Sensory and Motor Research Group, Human Information Science Laboratory