The Suitability of the Force plate to Evaluate the Stability During Quiet Standing and Analyzing the effecfs of shoes, Gender and Age on the Standing Stability

Background: Stability during standing is achieved by a complex process which is influenced by the ageing process.Using force plate is an acceptable method in order to evaluate stability.There is a number of parameters which can be used to evaluate the stability in quiet standing; however, the most common ones are: the excursion of Centre Of Pressure (COP), the mean amplitude and the standard deviation of the COP sway and the forces applied on the force plate.Unfortunately there is no standard way to analyze the standing stability with force plate or to select the subjects.Objective: The main aims of this research were to measure the stability parameters of normal subjects according to a standard method and to evaluate the effects of wearing shoes, age and gender of the participants on the standing stability.The suitability of the force plate to check the difference between stability parameters during various standing conditions was also evaluated in this research project.Methods: A group of 35 normal subjects, 10 females and 25 males, from the staff and students of Bioengineering Unit of University of Strathclyde were recruited and asked to stand on the force plate for one minute.They were selected according to their age and their health conditions.Specific tests were repeated 5 times for each subject.The difference between the mean values of the stability parameters was tested by using student T test and paired T test.Results: The results of this study showed that shoes can influence the standing stability.Moreover, the force plate is quite sensitive and thus can show the effects of aging on standing stability. Conclusion:Using parameters based on the COP sway can represent stability better than those parameters based on the forces applied on the force plate.