Quantitative assessment of balance performance on a passively unstable surface

In a variety of occupational settings, poor balance or loss of balance on passively unstable surfaces can have substantial consequences with respect to safety or job performance. In the work described here, a quantitative approach for evaluating balance on a passively unstable wobble board has been developed and assessed. Quantitative measures were computed from kinematic data obtained during wobble board balance tasks that were performed on two wobble boards with inherently different difficulty levels. Results demonstrated that these measures were able to distinguish between the overall balance capacities associated with the different wobble boards, as well as to identify differences in balance strategies.