DeskBalance: Novel Gamified System for Diagnosis and Treatment of Postural Stability

Abstract: This paper introduces novel, very cheap and easy-to-use system for postural-stability analysis, providing both diagnostic and therapeutic functions. It can be used by therapists to quantify patient’s postural stability, and also by patients itself for home training, where gamification is used to keep a patient motivated to practice prescribed exercises. The system composes from wobble board (platform with solid spherical bottom side) equipped by smartphone mounted to platform by holder. Tilt of board is measured in two degrees of freedom and transferred to laptop via Bluetooth, in which acquired data are processed and visualized. The system principles and its functions are described. The method is compared with present standard methods. The accuracy of measurements is derived and experimentally verified. Verification experiments proves, that much more expensive commercial solutions can be fully replaced with this cheap solution.

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