Published in:
01-11-2019 | Otology
Wireless inertial measurement unit (IMU)-based posturography
Published in: European Archives of Oto-Rhino-Laryngology | Issue 11/2019
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Background
Classical posturography techniques have been recently enhanced by the use of different motion tracking devices, but for technical reasons they are not used to track directly the body spatial position of a subject.
Objective
To describe and clinically evaluate a wireless inertial measurement unit-based mobile system to track body position changes.
Methods
The developed system used a calculus transformation method using the acceleration data corrected by Kalman and Butterworth filters to output position data. A prospective non-randomized clinical study involving 15 healthy subjects was performed to evaluate the agreement between the confidence ellipse areas synchronously measured by the new developed system and a classical posturography system while performing a modified clinical test of sensory interaction in balance.
Results
The overall intra-class correlation index was 0.93 (CI 0.89, 0.96). Grouped by conditions, under conditions 1–4, Pearson’s correlation was 0.604, 0.78, 0.882, and 0.81, respectively.
Conclusion
The developed wireless inertial measurement unit-based posturography system was valid for tracking the sway variances in normal subjects under habitual clinical testing conditions. Further studies are needed to validate this system on patients and also under other posture conditions.