Validity of the Nintendo Wii Balance Board for the Assessment of Balance Measures in the Functional Reach Test

IEEE Trans Neural Syst Rehabil Eng. 2018 Jul;26(7):1400-1406. doi: 10.1109/TNSRE.2018.2843884.

Abstract

The functional reach test (FRT) is widely used for assessing dynamic balance stability in elderly and pathological subjects. Force platforms (FPs) represent a fundamental part of the instrumented FRT experimental setup due to the central role of center-of-pressure (COP) displacement in FRT analysis. Recently, the nintendo wii balance board (NBB) has been suggested as a low-cost and reliable device for ground reaction force and COP measurement in poorly dynamic motor tasks. Therefore, this paper aimed to compare NBB-COP data with those obtained from a laboratory-grade platform during FRT. Data from 48 healthy subjects were simultaneously acquired from both devices. FP-COP and NBB-COP trajectories showed a remarkable correlation in both directions ( ) and low root-mean-square error values (1.14 ± 0.88 mm and 0.55 ± 0.28 mm for anterior-posterior and medial-lateral direction). Fixed biases between COP-based parameters did not exceed 2% of the FP outcomes with high consistency throughout the present measurement range (ICC consistency always >0.950). Only the COP mean velocity exhibited a tendency toward proportional errors, which can be adjusted by a calibration of NBB data. Findings of this paper confirmed the NBB validity for COP measurement in a widely used motor task as the functional reach, supporting the feasibility of NBB in research scenarios.

Publication types

  • Validation Study

MeSH terms

  • Adult
  • Biomechanical Phenomena
  • Calibration
  • Female
  • Healthy Volunteers
  • Humans
  • Male
  • Physical Therapy Modalities
  • Postural Balance / physiology*
  • Psychomotor Performance / physiology*
  • Reference Standards
  • Video Games
  • Young Adult