Article révisé par les pairs
Résumé : The quantitative assessment of balance still needs to be performed in a laboratory equipped with force plates because there is, currently, no other validated tool available. The Wii Balance Board™ (WBB) could be used as a portable, easy-to-use and inexpensive tool to assess balance. Before being used in clinics such kind of tool must go through an important validation process. In clinics not only the total displacement of Center of Pressure (CP) is relevant but other parameters can be derived from CP. The aim of this study was to validate the use of the WBB, compared to FP, in different balance testing conditions (standing and sitting) for multiple parameters derived from CP displacement (CP velocities, area of 95% prediction ellipse, dispersion of CP from the mean position…). Fifteen subjects participated in this study and performed a combination of single and double legs standing balance tests and a sitting balance test. Bland and Altman plots, paired-sample T-Tests and Pearson’s coefficient correlations were computed. For the nine studied parameters excellent correlations were found for each different task (mean correlation = 0.97). Unlike previous work on the WBB these excellent results were obtained without using any calibration procedure. Therefore, the WBB could be used in clinics to assess balance through different conditions.