A Velostat-Based Pressure-Sensitive Mat for Center-of-Pressure Measurements: A Preliminary Study

Javier Martinez-Cesteros, Carlos Medrano-Sanchez, Inmaculada Plaza-Garcia, Raul Igual-Catalan and Sergio Albiol-Pérez
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Javier Martinez-Cesteros: EduQTech, E.U. Politécnica, University of Zaragoza, 44003 Teruel, Spain
Carlos Medrano-Sanchez: EduQTech, E.U. Politécnica, University of Zaragoza, 44003 Teruel, Spain
Inmaculada Plaza-Garcia: EduQTech, E.U. Politécnica, University of Zaragoza, 44003 Teruel, Spain
Raul Igual-Catalan: EduQTech, E.U. Politécnica, University of Zaragoza, 44003 Teruel, Spain
Sergio Albiol-Pérez: EduQTech, E.U. Politécnica, University of Zaragoza, 44003 Teruel, Spain

IJERPH, 2021, vol. 18, issue 11, 1-13

Abstract: Center-of-pressure (CoP) displacements play a key role in studies assessing postural stability. The accepted instrument to measure CoP trajectories is the force platform, but pressure-sensitive mats (PSMs) are an alternative composed of a matrix of sensitive cells. A typical cell comprises two electrodes with piezoresistive material in between, while a force platform has a force sensor at each of its corners. In this paper, we compare a homemade Velostat-based PSM and an affordable commercial mat with a commercial force platform in a test series with 42 healthy volunteers in single-legged trials (29 males, 13 females; height 1.74 (0.09) m, weight 74.3 (16.34) kg, age 31.21 (12.66) years). The aim of the research was to perform a preliminary study of the performance of our prototype to measure CoP, and more specifically, the standard deviation of the CoP path on both axes, the medial–lateral and anterior–posterior. We could thus discover several improvements for future clinical applications. The intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) for agreement in the base experiment showed a moderate value for the prototype (0.38 to 0.63) and lower values for the commercial mat (0.11 to 0.12). However, we identified several factors that were relevant to improve ICC and reduce error by considering several processing options: (i) the known crosstalk problem between cells that appears in this kind of mats must be eliminated; (ii) the response time of the sensor has to be taken into account; and (iii) increasing the mat resolution also improves agreement. Therefore, as future work, we plan to test the improved version of the prototype in a clinical environment.

Keywords: center of pressure; balance assessment; force platform; pressure sensitive mat; Velostat (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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