Instrumentation for investigating seating stability in young children with lower limb spasticity

Instrumentation that will provide data to assist in the quantitative assessment of changes in seating stability after surgical intervention to relieve lower limb spasticity has been designed, constructed, and tested. Of particular interest in this study are measures of center of pressure while seated and standing, measures of upper extremity and lower limb forces exerted in a pull-to-stand task, and measures of upper extremity speed and range of motion attained in a tray-mounted switch-activation task. Data collected from the tests of seating stability, pull-to-stand, and supported standing are analyzed in both the time and frequency domains. In the time domain, two or three 30-s epochs are selected from each test to maximize the likelihood of attaining a stationary epoch.<>