ABSTRACT
Humans use three basic mechanisms to obtain a sense of balance in daily life. The three mechanisms (visual, vestibular, and proprioceptive) interact to maintain posture and impart a conscious sense of orientation. A defect in one of these systems decreases the subject’s overall ability to adjust to incongruous stimuli. Proprioceptive function can be tested by a number of balance tests. Star Excursion Balance Test (SEBT) is one such functional test that is used to assess dynamic balance and lower body stability. It integrates a single-leg stance of one leg with maximum reach of the other leg. Efficacy and reliability of this test has been established previously (Hertel et al., 2006; Olmsted et al., 2002). The SEBT involves a participant to maintain a base of support with one leg, while maximally reaching in different directions with the opposite leg, without compromising the base of support of the stance leg (Hertel et al., 2006; Gribble & Hertel, 2003). As SEBT tests involves only standing and stretching, they offer a simple, reliable, low-cost alternative to more sophisticated instrumented methods that are currently available. It has been shown that the result pattern for a healthy ankle is different than an injured/ recovered ankle (Olmsted et al., 2002; Gribble & Hertel, 2003; Hertel et al., 2006) and that the SEBT results are significantly influenced by the health of the ankle (Hertel et al., 2006). Since SEBT is a functional test or an index of lower body stability, it is evident that the health of the knee also plays an important role in influencing the results obtained. In this paper, the implication of SEBT results concerning the knee’s health is being considered. Since the data is high dimensional (eight), it is too intricate for an individual to analyze the data efficiently without any aid. Knowledge Extraction can give fairly good simulations and predictions for such domains. It implies that
the system is able to deduce some characteristics and relations which are not visible at first glance. It is this information or the hidden pattern in the presented data that we want to know and express in words. This is the main intention behind extracting knowledge from raw data, which is by nature, very hard to contemplate.
