Standing Balance Assessment by Measurement of Body Center of Gravity Using Smartphones

Abstract

Assessment of balance by means of posturographic analysis is frequently used in the clinical practice for evaluating the risk of falls or as an indicator of balance-related disorders. The development of automatic, affordable and accurate systems for gauging balance capabilities in the elderly is deemed a crucial step towards the adoption of prevention strategies and the reduction of associated social costs, especially in a context of growing average age of population. In this article we propose to exploit signals that can be collected from sensors on board of common consumer-grade smartphones for posturographic analysis. To this aim, we introduce several processing algorithms for extracting useful information from the acceleration data streams, and we also present an assessment framework based on the comparison of the trajectory of the body center of gravity, estimated from embedded triaxial accelerometers, with a homologous counterpart, estimated from the reference plate force, thus adding to the consistency of the whole process. Experimental results confirm the effectiveness of the proposed system in terms of its capability of achieving signals and posturographic features which agree with those obtained by means of balance board platforms, potentially opening the way to novel research studies and applications of mobile technology in this field.