Contrary to what some might think, force plates do not replace the rehabilitation framework that practitioners are taught and use day-to-day.
While there are many nuances, the most common reference points a sports medicine surgeon may use for decision-making in injury rehabilitation (other than physiological tissue healing time frames) – each of which can be measured by force plates – are:
- Normative data – benchmarking the injured patient against data for their demographic (age, sex, sport, industry) to understand their current deficits, then using that normative data as a goal to work towards. For example, ForceDecks features Norms – integrated normative data – in its reports to provide this context immediately after an assessment.
- Pre-injury data – if pre-injury data is available (it often is not in clinical settings), aiming to restore strength, movement, or other functions to their pre-injury levels.
- Limb Symmetry Index (LSI) – in the absence of normative or pre-injury data, practitioners may identify the magnitude of asymmetry between limbs as a reference point, then gear rehabilitation towards restoring the injured limb to within an acceptable percentage of the healthy limb.
Beyond these decision-making reference points, force plates enable a range of other valuable use cases throughout the rehabilitation journey.
- Discover new metrics and data that are not possible to measure without force plates. You may uncover deficiencies or strengths you did not expect – allowing for tailored rehabilitation.
- Monitor progress during rehab with accuracy and make decisions with confidence.
- Reference normative data to provide more context and meaning to results, both for you and for your patient.
- Biofeedback enhances the patient’s experience through gamified data visualization and real-time results.
- Enhance communication with clear objective data that can be easily explained to your patient and tracked over time.
- Automatic logging of testing data, removing the need for pen and paper, spreadsheets, or manual entry.
- Automatic reporting makes it simple to communicate results to stakeholders.
Common examples of force plates in rehabilitation settings include:
- Pre-operative physical assessments.
- Post-operative recovery.
- Muscle and tendon joint injury.
- Acute and degenerative joint pathologies.
