A news release from San Diego State University (SDSU) announces that its researchers have developed software and a balance board device engineered to measure balance with 99% accuracy on the field or in the clinic.
Daniel Goble, PhD, exercise and nutritional sciences professor who worked with a team of researchers to develop the device known as the B-TrackS system, will also reportedly publish a study in the Clinical Journal of Sports Medicine demonstrating the validity of the B-TrackS system.
Goble validated the system’s ability to assess balance before and after potential concussions with the help of the SDSU College of Engineering and the Zahn Innovation Center.
The release reports that one of Goble’s primary goals is to make the technology available to high schools and universities.
The device uses a low-cost balance board and custom software to provide information about how much the individual sways. Researchers maintain that the sway information is just as accurate as a force plate and is fully objective. Athletes are asked to stand on the board and conduct a series of movements based on balance control. Rather than measure athlete “errors,” the board measures the amount the individual sways.
The release notes that Goble and his team are now working with the university’s rugby team in order to test the most recent prototype of the technology. The university’s men’s soccer and women’s water polo teams are slated to test the system this fall.
Goble adds that he hopes the system can be used for other neurological conditions. “We’d definitely like to get into clinical realms—in terms of disease, we could this system as a way of tracking balance and knowing when significant changes in balance occur,” Goble says.
To see the B-TrackS in action, click here
[Source: San Diego State University]
