Static balance and neurological health assessment
To those of you new to our newsletter, welcome to Tech Corner! This is where I do a mini-dive into various, more technical topics.
Since we just launched our Static Balance module in the InStep app, I want to talk about balance and stability. I’ve talked about how complicated walking is as a mechanical process, and how much coordination it requires between your musculoskeletal and neurological systems, which is why walking is such a great indicator of overall system health. A lot of walking is dynamic balance - how smooth your gait is, how much wobbling you do, etc. - which we already measure with the InStep app (this is also one of the reasons we capture surface type, it matters to stability). Static balance assessments are a common clinical tool for assessing neurological health and muscular health. If you’ve ever played contact sports or if you’ve ever served in the military, you’ve likely come across the most common form of static balance testing, the SCAT5 test (Sport Concussion Assessment Tool), which is administered pitch-side immediately after a potential traumatic brain injury (TBI) and during follow-up visits in the clinic throughout recovery. The downsides to the SCAT5 are a.) it is pretty much only qualitative (for example, the person administering the test counts the number of wobbles or toe-touches), and b.) most of concussion recovery happens outside of the clinic, over the course of several days, so you have to go back into a clinic for re-testing until you’re back to “normal”. Outside of the concussion world, static balance tests are also crucial for monitoring neurological health in stroke, Parkinson’s, and Multiple Sclerosis, to name a few. Sustained loss in balance is an excellent early indicator that something else is wrong in your system, and an excellent movement-based biomarker! Think of us next time you wobble 🧠
Want to know a bit more about my background and inspiration? Check out this segment from my interview on the Tech Business Podcast with Paul Essery! The full interview is here.