DEVELOPMENT OF A KINECT-BASED SYSTEM FOR EVALUATING BODY IMBALANCE

The main methods used to evaluate diseases that cause body imbalance are made through Romberg’s Test or Berg Balance Scale. These verifications are affected by exercises and the imbalance analysis’ depends on the physiotherapist’s experience. To improve this process, a Kinect sensor from Microsoft was used to monitor all the stages of the trials. The integration of this technology associated with the tests allows more assertive diagnosis. The use of Kinect and the developed programming was able to identify the human body with all its limbs and therefore possible to read the body movements in real time and create the graphic of body angulation still during the test. Besides that, the development of the interface allowed the physiotherapist’s login, the input of the patient’s information, and the verification of the created graphics. Dozens of tests were done, with patients from 18 to 65 years old, with and without symptoms of pathology. For each one of them the graphics were generated allowing identification of the characteristic curve in the Romberg’s Test and Berg Balance Scale.