A novel method for whole body vibration platform characterization for clinical applications

In the last decades, many studies have been conducted on the biological effects resulting from Whole-Body Vibration (WBV) platforms, even if benefits or side effects resulting from exposure to whole-body vibrations in sport and rehabilitation applications are often conflicting. These discrepancies are likely due also to different operating conditions such as load, unload, load position on footboard, etc. Since acceleration differences could affect the biological response of the person it would be suitable to verify the actual vibrations. Nevertheless a standard and widespread accepted method for measuring and verifying the actual vibrations provided by a WBV device has not been established yet. The authors performed a characterization of a novel WBV platform by developing a method reported in section II. The tests carried out in different conditions show that the footboard doesn’t provide quite uniform vibrations along the vertical direction over the platform. Furthermore, transversal accelerations have been detected and in some cases they reached the 25% of the vertical ones. Currently, very few studies have investigated whether a WBV platform produces comparable accelerations in at least two points of the footboard. This paper proposes a method for the characterization of WBV platforms and the comparison of their performances.