iBALANCE - Hardware and Software Design for a Mobile Diagnostic Device that Assesses Human Balance

Qian Yang, Bradford Diephuis, Virginia Chu, Katharine E. Forth

2011

Abstract

Balance deterioration is a major risk factor for falling, particularly among the elderly. Early detection of emerging balance problems can allow behavioral and medical interventions to reduce the impact and severity of balance-related incidents. The iBalance technology presents a small, mobile platform that integrates hardware and software engineering for balance monitoring at a low cost for use in the home, physical therapy office, or other point of care setting. The hardware solution has the form factor of a bathroom scale and takes the standard approach of a force plate with four load cells arranged in the corners beneath the platform. The load cells output 12-bit data to a computing device running the accompanying software. There is less scientific consensus about the most effective software solution for performing analysis on balance data. A survey of the literature reveals 16 commonly used metrics of balance derived from force plate data. Using principal component analysis, we identify three underlying clusters of metrics from which a representative metric for each cluster may be chosen to construct an exogenous balance score. Finally, we have developed a graphical user interface for the iBalance that allows researchers to collect raw and/or processed data and view analytic visualizations of the data, with ease of extensibility for further research and analysis.

References

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Paper Citation


in Harvard Style

Yang Q., Diephuis B., Chu V. and E. Forth K. (2011). iBALANCE - Hardware and Software Design for a Mobile Diagnostic Device that Assesses Human Balance . In Proceedings of the International Conference on Health Informatics - Volume 1: HEALTHINF, (BIOSTEC 2011) ISBN 978-989-8425-34-8, pages 107-114. DOI: 10.5220/0003174001070114


in Bibtex Style

@conference{healthinf11,
author={Qian Yang and Bradford Diephuis and Virginia Chu and Katharine E. Forth},
title={iBALANCE - Hardware and Software Design for a Mobile Diagnostic Device that Assesses Human Balance},
booktitle={Proceedings of the International Conference on Health Informatics - Volume 1: HEALTHINF, (BIOSTEC 2011)},
year={2011},
pages={107-114},
publisher={SciTePress},
organization={INSTICC},
doi={10.5220/0003174001070114},
isbn={978-989-8425-34-8},
}


in EndNote Style

TY - CONF
JO - Proceedings of the International Conference on Health Informatics - Volume 1: HEALTHINF, (BIOSTEC 2011)
TI - iBALANCE - Hardware and Software Design for a Mobile Diagnostic Device that Assesses Human Balance
SN - 978-989-8425-34-8
AU - Yang Q.
AU - Diephuis B.
AU - Chu V.
AU - E. Forth K.
PY - 2011
SP - 107
EP - 114
DO - 10.5220/0003174001070114