Using biofeedback for standing-steadiness, weight-bearing training

A device to help improve balance and postural control is presented. Imbalance and falls are the leading causes of injury in older adults, and the leading causes of accidental death in those over age 85. Furthermore, the increase of age-related diseases such as neuromuscular dysfunction rely heavily on rehabilitation therapy. The effectiveness of the therapy depends of the skill of therapist and the functions of the therapeutic devices used. The results of this study demonstrated that the newly designed standing-training device with weight-bearing biofeedback offers better training for hemiplegia patients than does conventional training devices. The advantages of this new training device are as follows: (1) simple hardware configuration with low construction cost makes its use practical both in the hospital setting and in a home-care environment; (2) visual and auditory feedback of weight-bearing information gives the patient the means for self-postural compensation, with correspondingly less intervention by a therapist; (3) integrating balance training with real-time quantitative and graphical illuminating signals makes training more enjoyable for the patient; (4) biofeedback components for lower and upper extremities (i.e., weight-bearing measuring platform and posture correction mirror) can be decoupled and used in different training programs.