Balance assessment during squatting exercise: A comparison between laboratory grade force plate and a commercial, low-cost device

Testing balance through squatting exercise is a central part of many rehabilitation programs and sports and plays also an important role in clinical evaluation of residual motor ability. The assessment of center of pressure (CoP) displacement and its parametrization is commonly used to describe and...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of biomechanics 2018-04, Vol.71, p.264-270
Main Authors: Mengarelli, Alessandro, Verdini, Federica, Cardarelli, Stefano, Di Nardo, Francesco, Burattini, Laura, Fioretti, Sandro
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Balance assessment
Center of pressure
Displacement
Exercise
Force plate
Force plates
Laboratories
Measuring instruments
Nintendo Wii Balance Board
Noise
Parameterization
Parameters
Physical therapy
Rehabilitation
Signal processing
Spatial distribution
Squat task
Usability
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Testing balance through squatting exercise is a central part of many rehabilitation programs and sports and plays also an important role in clinical evaluation of residual motor ability. The assessment of center of pressure (CoP) displacement and its parametrization is commonly used to describe and analyze squat movement and the laboratory-grade force plates (FP) are the gold standard for measuring balance performances from a dynamic view-point. However, the Nintendo Wii Balance Board (NWBB) has been recently proposed as an inexpensive and easily available device for measuring ground reaction force and CoP displacement in standing balance tasks. Thus, this study aimed to compare the NWBB-CoP data with those obtained from a laboratory FP during a dynamic motor task, such as the squat task. CoP data of forty-eight subjects were acquired simultaneously from a NWBB and a FP and the analyses were performed over the descending squatting phase. Outcomes showed a very high correlation (r) and limited root-mean-square differences between CoP trajectories in anterior-posterior (r > 0.99, 1.63 ± 1.27 mm) and medial-lateral (r > 0.98, 1.01 ± 0.75 mm) direction. Spatial parameters computed from CoP displacement and ground reaction force peak presented fixed biases between NWBB and FP. Errors showed a high consistency (standard deviation 
ISSN:0021-9290
1873-2380
DOI:10.1016/j.jbiomech.2018.01.029