Number of Trials Needed to Assess Postural Control of Young Adults in Single and Dual-Task

Abstract

Despite its popularity, there is a lack of standardization when assessing postural control. This study aimed to suggest how many trials should be used when assessing young adults’ postural control with a specific single-task and dual-task quiet stance protocol. Two groups of 15 participants performed 20 trials of 60 s (feet together, eyes open) with or without a dual-task. The number of trials needed to obtain two consecutive intra-class correlation coefficients (ICC(2,k)) ≥0.900 was then assessed for seven center of pressure variables. Although inconsistency was observed between variables and tasks, five trials seems to be a good compromise.

Keywords:

• Dual-task
• postural control
• intraclass correlation coefficient
• standard error of measurement
• trial-to-trial reliability

Conflict of interest

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).