Reliability of static balance abilities measure using a smartphone's acceleration sensor

The purpose of this study is to investigate the reliability of static balance measurements using a smartphone. Thirty subjects were selected among university students who had no fractures, history of operation, or inflammatory arthritis, and they had not started regular exercise during the past three months. The smartphone used in this study was a Galaxy S5LTE (SM-G900F, Samsung, Korea, 2014), and the application was a Sensor Kinetics Pro (Ver. 2.1.2, INNOVENTIONS Inc., US, 2015). Static balance ability was measured three times at one-day intervals between tests and retests. The first and second measurements used the same process. Analysis was done using the Wilcoxon signed rank test and intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC (2,1)). The results were as follows. With eyes opened, there was no significant difference (p>0.05), a high volume of correlation (r>0.75, p<0.05), and very high reliability (ICC>0.80) between the first measurement and second measurement. With eyes closed, there was also no significant difference (p>0.05), a high volume of correlation (r>0.75, p<0.05), and very high reliability (ICC>0.80) between the measurements. The results show that the smartphone is likely accurate for measuring static balance. This study will look forward to being the only basis for measuring future application development and the ability to balance.