15
views
0
recommends
+1 Recommend
0 collections
    0
    shares
      • Record: found
      • Abstract: found
      • Article: found
      Is Open Access

      Wearable Inertial Sensors to Assess Standing Balance: A Systematic Review

      review-article

      Read this article at

      Bookmark
          There is no author summary for this article yet. Authors can add summaries to their articles on ScienceOpen to make them more accessible to a non-specialist audience.

          Abstract

          Wearable sensors are de facto revolutionizing the assessment of standing balance. The aim of this work is to review the state-of-the-art literature that adopts this new posturographic paradigm, i.e., to analyse human postural sway through inertial sensors directly worn on the subject body. After a systematic search on PubMed and Scopus databases, two raters evaluated the quality of 73 full-text articles, selecting 47 high-quality contributions. A good inter-rater reliability was obtained (Cohen’s kappa = 0.79). This selection of papers was used to summarize the available knowledge on the types of sensors used and their positioning, the data acquisition protocols and the main applications in this field (e.g., “active aging”, biofeedback-based rehabilitation for fall prevention, and the management of Parkinson’s disease and other balance-related pathologies), as well as the most adopted outcome measures. A critical discussion on the validation of wearable systems against gold standards is also presented.

          Related collections

          Most cited references77

          • Record: found
          • Abstract: found
          • Article: not found

          The relevance of clinical balance assessment tools to differentiate balance deficits.

          Control of balance is complex and involves maintaining postures, facilitating movement, and recovering equilibrium. Balance control consists of controlling the body center of mass over its limits of stability. Clinical balance assessment can help to assess fall risk and/or determine the underlying reasons for balance disorders. Most functional balance assessment scales assess fall risk and the need for balance rehabilitation but do not differentiate types of balance deficits. A system approach to clinical balance assessment can differentiate different kinds of balance disorders and a physiological approach can determine underlying sensorimotor mechanisms contributing to balance disorders. Objective measures of balance using computerized systems and wearable inertial sensors can bring more sensitive, specific and responsive balance testing to clinical practice.
            Bookmark
            • Record: found
            • Abstract: found
            • Article: not found

            Force platform measurements as predictors of falls among older people - a review.

            Poor postural balance is one of the major risk factors for falling. A great number of reports have analyzed the risk factors and predictors of falls but the results have for the most part been unclear and partly contradictory. Objective data on these matters are thus urgently needed. The force platform technique has widely been used as a tool to assess balance. However, the ability of force platform measures to predict falls remains unknown. The purpose of this systematic review was to extract and critically review the findings of prospective studies where force platform measurements have been used as predictors of falls among elderly populations. The study was done as a systematic literature review. PubMed, the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, and CINAHL databases from 1950 to April 2005 were used. The review includes prospective follow-up studies using the force platform as a tool to measure postural balance. Nine original prospective studies were included in the final analyses. In five studies fall-related outcomes were associated with some force platform measures and in the remaining four studies associations were not found. For the various parameters derived on the basis of the force platform data, the mean speed of the mediolateral (ML) movement of the center of pressure (COP) during normal standing with the eyes open and closed, the mean amplitude of the ML movement of the COP with the eyes open and closed, and the root-mean-square value of the ML displacement of COP were the indicators that showed significant associations with future falls. Measures related to dynamic posturography (moving platforms) were not predictive of falls. Despite a wide search only a few prospective follow-up studies using the force platform technique to measure postural balance and a reliable registration of subsequent falls were found. The results suggest that certain aspects of force platform data may have predictive value for subsequent falls, especially various indicators of the lateral control of posture. However, the small number of studies available makes it difficult to draw definitive conclusions. Copyright 2006 S. Karger AG, Basel.
              Bookmark
              • Record: found
              • Abstract: found
              • Article: found
              Is Open Access

              ISway: a sensitive, valid and reliable measure of postural control

              Background Clinicians need a practical, objective test of postural control that is sensitive to mild neurological disease, shows experimental and clinical validity, and has good test-retest reliability. We developed an instrumented test of postural sway (ISway) using a body-worn accelerometer to offer an objective and practical measure of postural control. Methods We conducted two separate studies with two groups of subjects. Study I: sensitivity and experimental concurrent validity. Thirteen subjects with early, untreated Parkinson’s disease (PD) and 12 age-matched control subjects (CTR) were tested in the laboratory, to compare sway from force-plate COP and inertial sensors. Study II: test-retest reliability and clinical concurrent validity. A different set of 17 early-to-moderate, treated PD (tested ON medication), and 17 age-matched CTR subjects were tested in the clinic to compare clinical balance tests with sway from inertial sensors. For reliability, the sensor was removed, subjects rested for 30 min, and the protocol was repeated. Thirteen sway measures (7 time-domain, 5 frequency-domain measures, and JERK) were computed from the 2D time series acceleration (ACC) data to determine the best metrics for a clinical balance test. Results Both center of pressure (COP) and ACC measures differentiated sway between CTR and untreated PD. JERK and time-domain measures showed the best test-retest reliability (JERK ICC was 0.86 in PD and 0.87 in CTR; time-domain measures ICC ranged from 0.55 to 0.84 in PD and from 0.60 to 0.89 in CTR). JERK, all but one time-domain measure, and one frequency measure were significantly correlated with the clinical postural stability score (r ranged from 0.50 to 0.63, 0.01 < p < 0.05). Conclusions Based on these results, we recommend a subset of the most sensitive, reliable, and valid ISway measures to characterize posture control in PD: 1) JERK, 2) RMS amplitude and mean velocity from the time-domain measures, and 3) centroidal frequency as the best frequency measure, as valid and reliable measures of balance control from ISway.
                Bookmark

                Author and article information

                Journal
                Sensors (Basel)
                Sensors (Basel)
                sensors
                Sensors (Basel, Switzerland)
                MDPI
                1424-8220
                20 September 2019
                October 2019
                : 19
                : 19
                : 4075
                Affiliations
                [1 ]Department of Electronics and Telecommunications, Politecnico di Torino, 10129 Torino, Italy
                [2 ]Department of Mathematical Sciences, Politecnico di Torino, 10129 Torino, Italy
                [3 ]Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Politecnico di Torino, 10129 Torino, Italy; stefano.pastorelli@ 123456polito.it
                [4 ]National Institute of Technology, Hakodate College, Hakodatate 042-8501, Japan; tadano@ 123456eng.hokudai.ac.jp
                [5 ]Graduate School of Health Science, Hokkaido University, Sapporo 060-0808, Japan
                Author notes
                Author information
                https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7626-1563
                https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5887-1499
                Article
                sensors-19-04075
                10.3390/s19194075
                6806601
                31547181
                964bb096-2ceb-4192-8a9b-702ca1692d13
                © 2019 by the authors.

                Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

                History
                : 29 July 2019
                : 17 September 2019
                Categories
                Review

                Biomedical engineering
                postural sway,postural balance,posturography,imu,inertial sensors,wearable,accelerometers,validation,parkinson’s disease,fall risk

                Comments

                Comment on this article