Open AccessASSESSMENT OF POSTURAL INSTABILITY IN PATIENTS WITH A NEUROLOGICAL DISORDER USING A TRI-AXIAL ACCELEROMETER
Author(s) -
Lenka Hanáková,
Vladimír Socha,
Jakub Schlenker,
Ondřej Čakrt,
Patrik Kutílek
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
acta polytechnica
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.207
H-Index - 15
eISSN - 1805-2363
pISSN - 1210-2709
DOI - 10.14311/ap.2015.55.0229
Subject(s) - physical medicine and rehabilitation , trunk , balance (ability) , accelerometer , ataxia , postural instability , quiet , cerebellar ataxia , psychology , audiology , medicine , computer science , neuroscience , physics , pathology , biology , ecology , disease , quantum mechanics , parkinson's disease , operating system
Current techniques for quantifying human postural stability during quiet standing have several limitations. The main problem is that only two movement variables are evaluated, though a better description of complex three-dimensional (3-D) movements can be provided with the use of three variables. A single tri-axial accelerometer placed on the trunk was used to measure 3-D data. We are able to evaluate 3-D movements using a method based on the volume of confidence ellipsoid (VE) of the set of points obtained by plotting three accelerations against each other. Our method was used to identify and evaluate pathological balance control. In this study, measurements were made of patients with progressive cerebellar ataxia, and also control measurements of healthy subjects, and a statistical analysis was performed. The results show that the VEs of the neurological disorder patients are significantly larger than the VEs of the healthy subjects. It can be seen that the quantitative method based on VE is very sensitive for identifying changes in stability, and that it is able to distinguish between neurological disorder patients and healthy subjects.