Is the Wii balance board a valid and reliable instrument to assess postural stability in older adults with type 2 diabetes mellitus?

Abstract

Aims: Evaluate the validity and reliability of the data from the Wii balance board (WBB), against a force platform (FP) in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM).

Methods: Forty-three adults with T2DM (age 62.1 ± 12.1 yrs) in the validity trial and 27 (age 63.5 ± 10.8 yrs) in the reliability study, were tested. Total COP area (mm) and range of antero-posterior (AP) and medio-lateral (ML) COP excursion were collected simultaneously on a FP and a WBB.

Results: Mean CoP sway path values were similar in all conditions in the FP when compared with the WBB. Regression model shows that WBB is able to explain most of the variation in CoP sway path data of the FP (between 42 and 72%) for all testing conditions, indicating that the WBB has good concurrent validity. Test-retest reliability for WBB was excellent, except for the COP sway area in the 'eyes open' condition (ICC = 0.55). Both conditions showed modest to excellent reliability in the AP (0.73-0.90) and the ML (0.77-0.91) directions.

Conclusion: The WBB has been shown to be a valid and reliable method to quantify the COP displacement during different balance tests in older adults with T2DM.

Keywords: Balance; Diabetes; Reliability; Validity; Wii balance board.