Could home be an appropriate location for performing posturographic assessments in elderly subjects?

Posturographic measurements are often performed in hospital in the context of assessing fall risks in elderly subjects. These hospital visits may generate different kinds of stimuli that could influence test outcomes.

The aim was to investigate whether posturographic measurements performed both at home and in hospital in a randomized order provide similar data.

Thirty-five healthy elderly subjects (average age 72.5 ± 3.7 years) were assigned to two postural evaluations performed in a random order: one at home and one at the hospital. Before the first evaluation, subject's levels of anxiety, depression and stress were assessed. Then, the area of body sway, velocity and medial-lateral and antero-posterior amplitudes were recorded twice, first with the subject's eyes opened and then with eyes closed.

The posturographic data obtained in hospital and at home were quite similar. However, when the group that was first evaluated in hospital was compared with the group first evaluated at home, the medio-lateral amplitude was observed to significantly decrease in the second evaluation compared with the data obtained in the first trial (P<0.05), and this decrease was significantly higher in the first group (P<0.05). For the eyes-opened condition, we found significant correlations between anxiety and the area of body sway, stress and the area of body sway, and anxiety and the medial-lateral amplitude.

Psychological factors may influence some posturographic data, and carrying out posturographic evaluations at home for elderly subjects could be a reasonable strategy.