Faculty of Engineering, Autonomous University of the State of Mexico, Toluca de Lerdo, Mexico.
Biomed Phys Eng Express. 2020 Jan 20;6(1):015027. doi: 10.1088/2057-1976/ab6858.
This paper presents the design and development of a new electronic portable device to assess the human balance of the human body during standing, using a minimal number of sensors and peripheral components. This device is aimed to evaluate human balance in environments outside of specialized laboratories, such as small clinics and therapy offices.
The design is based on previous designs using three or more resistive force sensors attached to the feet, however in the present work, the sensors were attached on an adjustable platform, to fit several sizes of feet. Furthermore, all the signal acquisition, process, storage and display are executed by an embedded electronic system, thus avoiding the use of computers and external peripherals. A new method to compute the CoP using only two sensors per foot was developed and tested in a group of 50 university students, (17 women and 33 men), 26.04 ± 4.94 years.
It was developed a portable electronic system to measure the trajectory of the CoP and to calculate the indexes values derived from it. The system is capable to discriminate between measuring situations (open and closed eyes), using only two sensors per foot (p < 0.0001). A comparison between the values obtained for young subjects using the proposed device, and the values reported in the literature showed a similar tendency.
The results indicate that the proposed system is a good, low-cost, and easy-to-use alternative tool for researchers and clinicians interested in the evaluation of human balance, especially if the measurements must be done outside laboratories.
本文提出了一种新的电子便携式设备的设计和开发，该设备使用尽可能少的传感器和外围组件来评估人体在站立时的平衡。该设备旨在评估小型诊所和治疗室等非专业实验室环境中的人体平衡。
该设计基于之前使用三个或更多附着在脚上的电阻式力传感器的设计，但在目前的工作中，传感器附着在一个可调节的平台上，以适应不同大小的脚。此外，所有的信号采集、处理、存储和显示都由一个嵌入式电子系统执行，从而避免使用计算机和外部外围设备。开发并测试了一种新的使用每只脚两个传感器来计算 CoP 的方法，该方法在一组 50 名大学生（17 名女性和 33 名男性）中进行了测试，年龄为 26.04 ± 4.94 岁。
开发了一种便携式电子系统来测量 CoP 的轨迹，并计算出由此衍生的指标值。该系统能够使用每只脚的两个传感器（p < 0.0001）来区分测量情况（睁眼和闭眼）。使用所提出的设备对年轻受试者进行的测量值与文献中报告的值进行比较，结果显示出相似的趋势。
结果表明，所提出的系统是研究人员和临床医生评估人体平衡的一种良好、低成本、易于使用的替代工具，特别是如果测量必须在实验室之外进行。
