Effectiveness of Incorporating the iBalance Platform into Community Leisure Falls Prevention Programmes

NHS Lanarkshire (NHS-L), North Lanarkshire Leisure (NLL), South Lanarkshire Leisure and Culture (SLLC), and the University of the West of Scotland (UWS) partnered to assess the implementation and effectiveness of a technological innovation in the prevention and rehabilitation of trips and falls. HUR Labs, a manufacturer of specialist rehabilitation equipment, has developed a small, portable balance trainer, the iBalance Platform (iBP), that is purported to not only effectively measure aspects of balance in clinical and leisure settings, but also provides training programmes for individualised improvement of diagnosed fall risk factors. However, to date, no research has utilised this equipment as both an outcome measure and within a training intervention programme for elderly populations who are at risk of falls. In a joint effort to enhance falls prevention work across the Lanarkshire service area, two iBPs were installed in community leisure settings (one in North and one in South). This collaborative project assessed the impact of the installation of this equipment on people, processes, and outcomes related to community falls prevention in Lanarkshire.
The aim of this research was to generate and investigate local evidence about the impact of including the HUR iBalance platform within the Lanarkshire falls prevention programme. The research objectives were:
i) To assess the effectiveness of the iBP within a falls prevention programme on balance measures.
ii) To assess the impact of implementing the iBP into the existing falls prevention programme within Lanarkshire.