Development of an Instrumented Chair to Identify the Phases of the Sit-to-Stand Movement

Instrumented versions of functional geriatric screening tests have been developed to improve clinical precision. Several different instrumented versions of the Sit-to-Stand (iSTS) test have been developed using a range of sensors such as accelerometers and cameras. An instrumented chair equipped with load cells and an ultrasound sensor was developed to detect phases of the STS (Sit to Stand). The chair was designed to be able to detect all the phases of the STS, including when the person was not in contact with the chair. Performance of the iSTS chair was compared between an RGB camera approach, and a data-fusion approach using the load-cell and ultrasound equipped chair. Ten adult subjects were tested performing the 5STS at two self-selected speeds. The accuracy of the load cell equipped chair was 70%, while the RGB camera achieved 76% accuracy. The ultrasound version of the chair and the fusion of the RGB and load cells technique both achieved significantly better accuracy at 86% and 89%, respectively. The new version of the instrumented chair obtained a high degree of accuracy in detecting the different phases of the STS and is suitable to detect STS phases without requiring additional sensors. Future work will test older subjects and aim to develop new parameters based on the phases of the STS as indicators of physical performance.