Balance and posture are important indicators of health and well-being. BTrackS™ Assess Balance was designed to provide clinicians and health/wellness professionals with an effective way to determine disruptions in balance/posture, which can lead to increased fall risk. BTrackS™ Assess Balance is easy to administer, with the portability to be used almost anywhere within the community.
BTrackS™ software is provided via internet download following purchase of the system. Double click the setup file and follow the installation instructions to load the Assess Balance application onto your Windows PC, laptop or tablet.
Enter information about the individual to be tested in order to establish a profile for tracking results. Profile information is saved locally to the computer, and can be created in advance of testing to save time.
The BTrackS™ Balance Test (BBT) detects disrupted balance in a quiet, eyes-closed, feet shoulder width apart standing position. The BTrackS™ Posture Test (BPT) quantifies the individual’s center of pressure location relative to an ideal centered location midway between the ankles.
BTrackS™ Assess Balance provides instant results following testing. These can be printed to share with the individual being tested, other health professionals or for insurance purposes. These results are also stored locally for later reference.
BTrackS™ Assess Balance software is an ideal solution for tracking changes in balance that occur with balance training or various clinical interventions (e.g. physical therapy, chiropractic manipulation, orthotics, etc…). Indeed, the BTrackS™ Balance Test (BBT) has high test-retest reliability for establishing Baseline balance status and comparing balance performance at regular Post-baseline intervals. Monitor balance regularly to establish the effectiveness of your interventions and training protocols.
Integrated into the BTrackS™ Assess Balance software is a powerful normative database of over 10,000 testing results. Using this data, each individual tested is given a percentile ranking following performance of the BTrackS™ Balance Test. This ranking is a comparison between the tested individual and hundreds of peers in their relative age groups. Those individuals with high percentile rankings are performing well for their age. In contrast, those individuals with low percentile rankings should be targeted for balance interventions.
After an individual has taken the BTrackS™ Balance Test they are automatically provided with a Fall Risk Assessment. This assessment places the individual into a LOW, MODERATE or HIGH risk category. Categorization is based on relative performance such that HIGH risk status is a balance result worse than 98% (two standard deviations) of typical young adults. This categorization aligns with published statistics for the number of adults who fall and studies showing that increased postural sway is a risk factor for falling.
The standard measure of balance in BTrackS™ is the average amount of sway exhibited over three trials. While this is an accurate and robust measure of postural sway, some balance clinicians are interested in additional measures of performance. For these users, BTrackS™ Assess Balance provides 10 additional metrics that capture the various size, speed and consistency characteristics of test performance.
There is an intimate relationship between balance and posture with the latter being predicted by the former. With BTrackS™ Assess Balance, users can quickly and effectively determine global postural alignment by determining the location of the body’s center of pressure on the BTrackS™ Balance Plate during relaxed standing. If the individual has good posture, their center of pressure will be located midway between the ankles. Further, BTrackS™ Assess Balance provides users with a measure of weight distribution, calculating the percentage of pressure placed on the left/right and front/back halves of the feet.
