Technical noteReliability and concurrent validity of the Microsoft Xbox One Kinect for assessment of standing balance and postural control
Introduction
Since its release the Microsoft Kinect has shown great promise as a physical function assessment tool, and has been used in clinical populations to examine aspects of function such as balance and gait [1], [2]. Validation of the Kinect against a criterion reference typically showed good to excellent associations [3], [4], [5], with a previous study reporting excellent results for static balance and reaching tasks [6]. With the release of the Microsoft Kinect V2, which has improved hardware specifications, and the official software development kit (SDK) the precision and accuracy of anatomical landmark tracking may be improved. This study aimed to examine the validity and reliability of the Kinect V2 for examining outcome measures collected during a variety of static and dynamic balance tests.
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Participants
Thirty young, injury-free individuals (age: 22.87 ± 5.08 yrs, height: 172.85 ± 9.11 cm, mass: 68.67 ± 9.15 kg, male = 15) volunteered to participate. Participants wore tight-fitting shorts and an upper body garment that allowed placement of reflective markers. Participants attended two separate testing sessions approximately seven days apart (mean: 7 ± 2 days). This study was approved by the institution's Human Research Ethics Committee and all subjects provided informed consent.
Procedures
Participants performed a
Results
The cross-correlation analysis (Table 2) revealed that for the single leg tests all axes approached or exceeded the threshold for excellent association (r range = 0.70–0.80). In contrast, for the double leg tests there was only modest association (r range = 0.44–0.47) between the two devices. This discrepancy was likely due to the limited range of motion of the anatomical landmarks during these trials, with an association between greater sway range and increased cross-correlation observed (r = 0.63).
Discussion
This study examined the reliability and concurrent validity of the Kinect V2 for assessing static and dynamic balance. Concurrent validity of trunk angle data was excellent for the reach and LOS tests, indicating that the Kinect V2 could be a useful way of easily instrumenting these tests. With respect to the static balance tests, the AP range and path length had excellent concurrent validity in all four tests, but modest reliability in the single leg assessments. This is despite the
Conflict of interest statement
There is no conflict of interest. Author RAC may release software related to this project in the future.
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