Abstract
Postural stability control performance assessment is necessary in providing important information for individuals who are at risk of falling or who have balance impairment. Instrumented assessment is suggested as a valid and reliable test, but the cost and the difficulty of setup are significant limitations. The aim of this cross-sectional (test-retest reliability) study was to develop and determine the reliability of a low-cost posturography for assessing postural stability control performance during standing. The low-cost posturography was developed with four load cells and an acrylic platform. The center of pressure (COP) displacement and velocity were analyzed using written software. Test-retest reliability was performed with six different standing postural stability tests in twenty healthy volunteers on two different days. Intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC), standard error of measurement (SEM), coefficient of variation (CV), and Bland–Altman plot and limits of agreements (LOA) were used for analyses. The low-cost posturography was accurate (ICC = 0.99, p < 0.001; SEM = 0.003 cm) when compared to the true with calculated X and Y coordinates, with a moderate to excellent test-retest reliability for both COP displacement (ICCs ranged 0.62–0.91, p < 0.05; SEMs ranged 17.92–25.77%) and COP velocity (ICCs ranged 0.62–0.91, p < 0.05; SEMs ranged 18.09–27.69%) in all standing postural stability tests. Bland–Altman plots and LOAs suggested good agreement of tested parameters from the developed low-cost posturography between different days. In conclusion, the developed low-cost posturography had adequate reliability for assessing COP displacement and velocity during standing postural control stability performance tests.
Highlights
Postural control is an essential component of the motor control needed to achieve a body motion oriented to daily living environments [1, 2]
Instruments and System Overview. e Standing Balance Assessment Posturography (SBAP) (Figure 1) consisted of an acrylic platform (50 cm width x 50 cm length x 0.5 cm thickness) with four parallel beam load cells embedded under the four corners of platform. e load cells were connected with signal amplifiers and a microcontroller (Arduino Uno). e acrylic platform was mounted on an aluminium frame (50 cm width x 50 cm length x 15 cm height) which was glued to a nonslip material on the bottom surface. e SBAP was interfaced with a laptop computer
Physical and emotional changes which apparently disturbed postural stability control performance were not observed in all volunteers
Summary
Postural control is an essential component of the motor control needed to achieve a body motion oriented to daily living environments [1, 2]. Instrumented testing with a force platform, posturography, and stabilography are frequently provided to assess postural stability control performance. E COP displacement (or the COP path length) and the COP velocity were suggested to be reliable and valid measures for determining postural stability control performance during standing [15, 18,19,20,21]. Erefore, a number of studies have focused on developing accurate and reliable tools for determining postural stability control performance with lower cost equipment [22, 23]. Several studies demonstrated that a Wii Balance BoardTM (WBB) with developed software was a valid and reliable tool for a low-cost postural stability control performance assessment [20, 22, 24,25,26,27]. If an unsuccessful trial occurred, the volunteer was asked to perform repeatedly
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