Diabetic foot ulcers represent a severe complication of diabetes mellitus, affecting millions of adults worldwide and often leading to hospitalization and amputation. Diabetic neuropathy increases the risk of plantar injuries, while the lack of continuous monitoring and delayed detection contributes to the progression of these lesions. This study presents a low-cost smart insole system for continuous plantar pressure monitoring and screening of plantar pressure patterns associated with diabetic neuropathy. The system integrates piezoresistive sensors distributed across key regions of the foot, connected to a low-power ESP32 microcontroller for data acquisition. Measurements are transmitted via Bluetooth Low Energy to a mobile application that enables real-time visualization, user management, and storage in a MySQL database for historical data consultation. Data processing employs a convolutional neural network configured to classify plantar pressure patterns between non-diabetic individuals and diabetic patients presenting neuropathic alterations. System validation demonstrated 88% accuracy, 88% recall, and 87% F1-score in classifying plantar pressure patterns. The results confirm that the combination of low-cost hardware and open-source software constitutes a viable and scalable solution for screening biomechanical alterations associated with diabetic foot complications.
Morales-Morales et al. (Sun,) studied this question.