Designing a better postural measurement system.

For more than a century the phenomenon of postural sway has attracted the attention of neurologists, control engineers, and otoneurologists, because body sway provides a global assessment of the sensorimotor systems involved in postural control. This article presents an overview of the history of body sway studies, highlighting some of the shortcomings of past techniques. Spurred on by these shortcomings, we specified design criteria for a better postural measurement system. The system has been implemented, and some of the preliminary applications are detailed that demonstrate the utility of our approach.