Reliability, Validity and Utility of Inertial Sensor Systems for Postural Control Assessment in Sport Science and Medicine Applications: A Systematic Review

Abstract

Background: Recent advances in mobile sensing and computing technology has provided a means to objectively quantify postural control in unobtrusive environment. This has resulted in the rapid development and evaluation of a series of wearable inertial sensor-based assessments. However, the validity, reliability and clinical utility of such systems is not fully understood. Objectives: This systematic review aims to synthesise and evaluate studies which have investigated the ability of wearable inertial sensor systems to validly and reliability quantify postural control performance in sports science and medicine applications. Methods: A systematic search strategy, utilising the PRISMA guidelines, was employed to identify eligible articles through ScienceDirect, Embase and PubMed databases. Forty-seven articles met the inclusion criteria and were evaluated and qualitatively synthesised under two main headings: measurement validity and measurement reliability. Furthermore, studies which investigated the utility of these systems in clinical populations were summarised and discussed. Results: After duplicate removal 4,374 articles were identified with the search strategy, with 47 papers included in the final review. Twenty-eight studies investigated validity in healthy populations, while 15 studies investigated validity in clinical populations. Thirteen studies investigated the measurement reliability of these sensor-based systems. Conclusions: The application of wearable inertial sensors for sports science and medicine postural control applications is an evolving field. To date, research has primarily focused on evaluating the validity and reliability of a heterogeneous set of assessment protocols, in a laboratory environment. While researchers have begun to investigate their utility in clinical use-cases such as concussion and musculoskeletal injury, most studies have leveraged small sample sizes, have low study quality, and use a variety of descriptive variables, assessment protocols and sensor mounting locations. Future research should evaluate the clinical utility of these systems in large high-quality prospective cohort studies, to establish the role they may play in injury risk-identification, diagnosis and management.

Sport Biomechanics Applications Using Inertial, Force, and EMG Sensors: A Literature Overview

“…Although several systematic reviews already available in literature demonstrated the reliability, validity, and utility of inertial sensors for sport applications [8,143,144], an overview on specific applications that can be implemented by analysing kinematics, kinetics, muscle activity, and physiological parameters through wearable sensors is missing. From this perspective, we aimed to provide an overview on applications of sport biomechanics that require the use of wearable sensors, not only the inertial ones.…”

Capturing concussion related changes in dynamic balance using the Quantified Y Balance Test – a case series of six elite rugby union players

“…Recent advances in smart-phone and wearable technology has allowed for the development of digital health systems capable of objectively quantifying human movement [13,14]. Such systems have overcome some of the limitations typically seen with traditional biomechanical measurement tools (force platforms and marker-based motion capture), allowing for the quantification of clinical balance assessments [15]. The Ybalance test (YBT) is one of the most commonly used sports medicine dynamic balance assessments, providing a means to validly and reliably quantify sensorimotor function [16].…”

Focus collection on Modern Approaches for Sports Medicine and Performance

“…The sports technology and wearables industry has provided opportunity to collect an almost endless stream of data regarding athlete health and performance; however, with the huge amount of data that can be accessed and used, there are also issues that must be dealt with. For example, despite the popularity of novel technologies and wearables, very few of these devices have been rigorously and independently examined to determine their accuracy, reliability, validity (Johnston et al, 2019), and overall usefulness within sports medicine and performance settings or populations (Wallen et al, 2016, MacDonald et al, 2017.…”