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Body postural sway analysis in older people with different fall histories

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Abstract

A cross-sectional study of postural sway analysis in older non-fallers, once-fallers and multiple-fallers using five common standing tests was conducted. Eighty-six older subjects with an average age of 80.4 years (SD ± 7.9) participated in the study. The angular rotation and velocity of the trunk of the participants in the roll (lateral) and pitch (sagittal) planes were recorded using an inertial sensor mounted on their lower backs. The Gaussian Mixture Models (GMM), Expectation-Maximisation (EM) and the Minimum Message Length (MML) algorithms were applied to the acquired data to obtain an index indicative of the body sway. The standing with feet together and standing with one foot in front, sway index distinguished older fallers from non-fallers with specificity of 75.7% and 77.7%, respectively, and sensitivity of 78.6% and 82.1%, respectively. This compares favourably with the Berg Balance Scales (BBS) with specificity of 70.5% and sensitivity of 75.3%. The results suggest that the proposed method has potential as a protocol to diagnose balance disorder in older people.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank Melissa Roach, the clinical physiotherapist, for her supervision during the experimental tests. Miss Maryam Ghahramani, the chief investigator, did this study as a part of her PhD. thesis. Her PhD scholarship was funded by Illawarra Shoalhaven Local Health District (ISLHD). The authors wish to acknowledge that Bulli Hospital, Bulli, Australia, and Wollongong Hospital, Wollongong, Australia, provided this study with older participants.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Electrical, Computer and Telecommunications Engineering, University of Wollongong, Wollongong, Australia

    Maryam Ghahramani, David Stirling, Fazel Naghdy & Golshah Naghdy

  2. Illawarra Health and Medical Research Institute, University of Wollongong, Wollongong, Australia

    Janette Potter

  3. Illawarra Shoalhaven Local Health District, Wollongong, Australia

    Janette Potter

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  1. Maryam Ghahramani
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  2. David Stirling
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  3. Fazel Naghdy
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  4. Golshah Naghdy
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Correspondence to Maryam Ghahramani.

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The participants were asked to read and sign an informed consent statement. The ethics committee of the University of Wollongong, Wollongong, Australia (HE13/125), approved this study.

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Ghahramani, M., Stirling, D., Naghdy, F. et al. Body postural sway analysis in older people with different fall histories. Med Biol Eng Comput 57, 533–542 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11517-018-1901-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11517-018-1901-5

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