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.

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