Force platform

However, they also provide an additional level of intelligence on neuromuscular status by evaluating the force distribution between limbs during double-limb tests, revealing critical information on strength asymmetries and compensatory strategies.

By 2010, it was found that the WBB is a valid and reliable instrument to measure the weight distribution, when directly compared to the "gold-standard" laboratory-grade force plate, while costing less than $100.

These studies are conducted using customized software, such as LabVIEW (National Instruments, Austin, TX, USA) that can be integrated with the board to be able to measure the amount of body sway or the CoP path length during trials for time.

The other benefit to having a posturography system, such as the WBB, is that it is portable so clinicians around the world are able to measure body sway quantitatively, instead of relying on the subjective, clinical balance assessments currently in use.

Force platforms used for measuring a patient's balance and mobility performance are classified by the U.S. FDA (United States Food and Drug Administration) as Class I Medical Devices.

Standards such as these are used by manufactures of medical grade force platforms to ensure that measurements made on a patient population are accurate, repeatable and reliable.

In short, inexpensive consumer grade entertainment components may be a poor choice for medical measurements given the lack of continuity of such products and their legal, regulatory and perhaps quality unsuitability for such applications.

Chronology •1976• Advanced Mechanical Technology, Inc. (AMTI) constructed the first commercially available strain gauge force plate for gait analysis at the biomechanics laboratory of the Boston Children's Hospital.