Revised Stability Scales of the Postural Stability Index for Human Daily Activities

Area of Science:

• Biomechanics and Human Movement
• Gerontology
• Wearable Technology

Background:

• Evaluating human postural stability is crucial for fall prevention strategies.
• Existing methods for postural stability assessment often lack applicability in daily activities.
• The Postural Stability Index (PSI) has been proposed to quantify posture stability during everyday tasks.

Purpose of the Study:

• To utilize the PSI for developing enhanced stability scales applicable to human daily activities.
• To investigate the influence of factors like age, velocity, step count, and device type on PSI values.
• To validate the efficacy of the developed PSI-based stability scales for monitoring postural stability.

Main Methods:

• Utilized two open datasets and conducted three experiments involving mobile devices.
• Applied ensemble empirical mode decomposition (EEMD) for data preprocessing.
• Calculated complexity index using multiscale entropy (MSE) from intrinsic mode functions (IMFs).

Main Results:

• The Postural Stability Index (PSI) is suitable for daily monitoring of postural stability in both young and older adults.
• PSI values were found to be independent of the age of the participants.
• The revised stability scales demonstrated superior performance in providing user suggestions compared to the original scales.

Conclusions:

• The PSI offers a reliable method for continuous, daily assessment of postural stability.
• The developed PSI-based stability scales provide a valuable tool for fall risk assessment and intervention across different age groups.
• Future research can explore the integration of these scales into mobile health applications for broader accessibility.