Just enough measurement: A proposed paradigm for designing medical instrumentation

Abstract

Our research group hypothesizes that one way to provide low-cost healthcare delivery efficiently is through the use of a large number of inexpensive sensors that can provide meaningful medical data. Typical development of medical instrumentation pursues increased resolution and higher accuracy - accompanied by a corresponding increase in cost; it is no secret that high costs impose a heavy burden on healthcare. We seek to invert the adage that quality is more important than quantity by extracting high quality biomedical information from a large quantity of low-cost measurements, and to demonstrate this using measurement instrumentation developed in our lab for extra-clinical assessment and rehabilitation tools. This will be discussed in terms of our initial experiments in evaluating balance and postural stability. This is an area of critical clinical importance: 2.6 million non-fatal fall injuries in persons over age 65 resulted in direct health care costs of $19 billion (in 2000) in the U.S., and the number of persons over age 65 in the U.S. is projected to more than double between 2000 and 2030.

Instrumented insole vs. force plate: A comparison of center of plantar pressure

“…Similarly, we measured greater than a 300% change in COPP area (e.g. as determined using the x and y COPP locations) of a subject with Parkinson's off and on medication [18]. Though daily changes are likely to be much smaller than changes seen Parkinson's off and on medication, we expect that we will be able to measure and detect many relevant changes in balance through use of our COPP measures.…”

“…as obtained by an insole in the home environment) can provide meaningful medical results comparable to or exceeding single high-quality measurements (e.g. as obtained in a motion laboratory) [18]. This paper assesses the concurrent validity of the COPP calculated from this system with the COPP calculated from a force plate.…”