Pressure insoles (or force insoles) are devices made to measure the reaction forces of the ground. They are built to measure how much pressure does the body produce and how its distributed on the surface of the device, when the foot contacts the ground, and this allows to measure balance with specific parameters like the Center Of Pressure (COP).
Some studies have used these devices to meassure the COP on static(Standing position) and dynamic balance(Walk, jump, run). Activities like Walking, and running have some phases on its movements when one foot (or even both of them) is not doing contact with the ground, but still the insoles record some residual pressure in this moment. Depending on how much time are we recording, does it imply that the residual pressure recorded is going to change the outcome in a significative way? if this happens, should researchers delete this remaining data?
Dear Colleague,
In the last few months I have studied the smart insoles - just theoretically, for teaching purposes namely. But I think your observation is quite important. Possibly these values during swing phases should be subtracted from the other values ? I can imagine that they are generated as a result of foot-insole contacts within the shoe (friction etcetera), but again - we don't have any practical experience with this (new) phenomenon.
Wishing you success, with kind greetings,
Koos Jaap van Zwieten
In swing phase, the foot and its bones, muscles and soft tissues are acting in open chain.
In stance, the foot and its bones, muscles and soft tissues are acting in closed chain.
In closed chain, there is increased tissue stress applied by gravity, the hard ground and shoe gear that is minimal or nonexistent.
In closed chain, there is a reversal of muscle engineering due to the application of gravity and the ground surface.
We would not even be having this conversation if we were on the moon or walking in water.
I believe this question to be a red herring and nothing more.
Thank you Very much to all of you for being part in this question. I´ve been looking for available data regarding to the use of COP parameters in the measurement on different activities, and how part of the register can be useless or even impair the result of the measurement. This kind of devices are widely used on balance measurement, but still very unknow for me (specially on the data they are recording and its function).
I'm agree with Dr. Van Zwieten. In my short experience with pressure insoles, they surely seem to record those kind of forces (like friction, even if its magnitude is not as big as the pressure when the foot touch the ground) when the foot is not doing contact with the ground, and is this kind of data which brings me to the question.
I´m looking forward to follow Luca´s instructions; Again, Thank you very much.
For your consideration: I'm still learning to speak english properly, so i beg you please be patient with me.
It´s true that, depending on the moment of the activity and if the lower limb is making contact with the ground or not (Closed or open chain), there are going to be reaction forces being recorded by the device, caused by the whole mechanical resultant forces implied on the contact and even the movement itself of the lower limb, and i supose that data is going to impact on the results of the measurement; but i also think that the answer is not so clear, specially depending on how much time is the foot doing contact with the ground, and most of the devices (force plate, pressure insole) used in the studies related to balance doesn't seem to have that in count. Force plates usually don´t have this problem cause this kind of devices usually do the measurement when the foot contact the device, unlike pressure insoles.
From my empirical knowledge all data should be taken into consideration. This type of study, that implies the use of an insole, could offer information over a larger range of anthologies, because it can measure in close and open chain.
Only if the data is beyond normal limits it should be used a threshold. In this direction there is a lot to talk about because I haven't heard of such normal limits, they depend on the situation of analysis environment. All that we know is that friction is given by friction coefficient multiplied by N and the ground reaction force is mass multiplied by acceleration plus any external or internal forces that might appear. It would be interesting to find a relation between this parameters that could offer a coefficient to calculate the limits of the forces considering age, mass, and different anthropometrical values.
In conclusion, I would use those values obtained from the opened swing phase of locomotion.
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