A review of center of pressure (COP) variables to quantify standing balance in elderly people: Algorithms and open ‐access code*

This study reviews and compares a wide range of state-of-the-art variables that are used to assess the risk of fall in elderly from a stabilogram. When appropriate, we discuss the hypothesis and mathematical assumptions that underlie these variables, and we propose a reproducible method to compute each of them. Additionally, we provide a statistical description of their behavior on two datasets recorded in two elderly populations and with differen t protocols, to hint at typical values of these variables. First, the balance of 133 elderly individuals, including 32 fallers, was measured on a relatively inexpensive, portable force platform (Wii Balance Board, Nintendo) with a 25-s open-eyes protocol. Second, the recordings of 76 elderly individ uals, from an open access database commonly used to test static balance analyses, were used to compute the values of the variables on 60-s eyes-open recordings with a research laboratory standard force platform.
Source: Physiological Reports - Category: Physiology Authors: Tags: REVIEW Source Type: research