Interchangeability of the Wii Balance Board for Bipedal Balance Assessment.

Bruno Bonnechère,Bart Jansen,Marcel Rooze,Serge Van Sint Jan,Lubos Omelina

doi:10.2196/rehab.3832

Abstract

BackgroundSince 2010, an increasing interest in more portable and flexible hardware for balance and posture assessment led to previously published studies determining whether or not the Wii Balance Board could be used to assess balance and posture, both scientifically and clinically. However, no previous studies aimed at comparing results from different Wii Balance Boards for clinical balance evaluation exist.ObjectiveThe objective of this crossover study is to assess the interchangeability of the Wii Balance Board.MethodsA total of 6 subjects participated in the study and their balance was assessed using 4 different Wii Balance Boards. Trials were recorded simultaneously with Wii Balance Boards and with a laboratory force plate. Nine relevant clinical parameters were derived from center of pressure displacement data obtained from Wii Balance Board and force plate systems. Intraclass correlation coefficients (ICC), F tests, and Friedman tests were computed to assess the agreement between trials and to compare the Wii Balance Board and force plate results.ResultsExcellent correlations were found between the Wii Balance Board and force plate (mean ρ =.83). With the exception of 2 parameters, strong to excellent agreements were found for the 7 remaining parameters (ICC=.96). No significant differences were found between trials recorded with different Wii Balance Boards.ConclusionsOur results indicate that for most of the parameters analyzed, balance and posture assessed with one Wii Balance Board were statistically similar to results obtained from another. Furthermore, the good correlation between the Wii Balance Board and force plate results shows that Wii Balance Boards can be reliably used for scientific assessment using most of the parameters analyzed in this study. These results also suggest that the Wii Balance Board could be used in multicenter studies and therefore, would allow for the creation of larger populations for clinical studies.Trial RegistrationEthical Committee of the Erasme Hospital (CCB B406201215142).

Highlights

The potential use of the Nintendo Wii Balance Board for assessing balance and posture has already been previously investigated [1]
Low agreements were found for variables derived from ML displacements (ICC values of .334 and .345 for RMSML and AdCPML, respectively)
With respect to the 4 different Wii Balance Boards, no differences were found between the boards, but surprisingly, the Intraclass correlation coefficients (ICC) values showed low agreement for the ML parameters (RMSML and AdCPML) correlations with the force plate were high (.80 and.89 for RMSML and AdCPML, respectively)

Summary

Introduction

The potential use of the Nintendo Wii Balance Board for assessing balance and posture has already been previously investigated [1]. Most previously published papers on this particular topic reported a high correlation between a force plate and a Wii Balance Board for evaluating center of pressure trajectories. Such conclusions have encouraged the use of Wii Balance Board hardware in daily clinical practice to assess balance in various pathological conditions such as Parkinson disease, orthopedics, and elderly assessment (eg, [5]). The authors found an uncertainty of 4.1 mm across the different Wii Balance Boards in static measurement; no information can be found in the literature about the reproducibility of measurement of center of pressure trajectories obtained with different Wii Balance Boards This information is important to ensure repeatability and comparison of measurements between several clinical centers (eg, within multicenter studies organized to analyze a large amount of patients). Trial Registration: Ethical Committee of the Erasme Hospital (CCB B406201215142)

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