A CaptureProof product
Three standard mobility tests, timed and counted by your phone.
See how your results compare to published age and sex reference ranges — and how they change over time.
Balance Scan is a general wellness product. It is not a medical device and does not diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any medical condition.
What the app measures
Three published functional mobility tests, run the way clinicians run them.
The phone acts as a stopwatch and a repetition counter. It does not measure anything from your body — it automates the timing and counting of standard tests, then shows the number next to published reference ranges.
30CST
30-Second Sit-to-Stand
Count how many times you can rise from a chair to a full standing position in 30 seconds, without pushing off with your arms.
What it reflects: lower-body strength and endurance.
Reference basis: CDC STEADI publishes below-average scores by age and sex, conventionally understood to derive from Jones, Rikli & Beam (1999). The table stops at age 94.
TUG
Timed Up and Go
Time how long it takes to stand up, walk 10 feet (3 metres), turn, walk back and sit down — at your normal pace, in your usual shoes, with your usual walking aid if you use one.
What it reflects: basic functional mobility, timed as one sequence.
Reference basis: Podsiadlo & Richardson (1991). Published thresholds differ by population — CDC STEADI cites 12 seconds, Shumway-Cook et al. (2000) used 13.5 seconds.
TUG-Cognitive
Timed Up and Go with a counting task
The same walk, while counting backwards by threes out loud from a number chosen at random. Doing two things at once is harder than doing either on its own.
What it reflects: how much attention walking requires. The gap between your two times is worth watching.
Reference basis: Shumway-Cook, Brauer & Woollacott (2000) reported 15 seconds or more for the cognitive variant in a 30-participant study. There is no consensus threshold for dual-task cost, so it is shown as a trend.
How it works
Set up the room
A stable chair and a clear 10-foot path, with turning space at the end.
Prop the phone
Place it where it can see the whole path. A tripod is best; otherwise a second person holds it steady with both hands.
Follow the on-screen guide
The app times each test and counts your repetitions, so nobody has to work a stopwatch. The video is recorded, so the movement itself can be reviewed later.
See your result
Your number, how it sits against published reference ranges, and how it has changed since last time. Share it with your doctor.
You get a full report of everything the scan shows — your times and counts, how they compare, and what we can see about the way you move — to take to your doctor.
Set up in under a minute
Your phone does the timing
See your result straight away
Watch it change over time
Who uses it
The same three tests, repeated the same way, so the numbers can be compared to each other.
Keeping an eye on your own mobility
Older adults who want to see how their strength and everyday movement hold up from one month to the next, in their own home.
Helping a parent
Family members who are already the second person in the room, and want something more useful than an impression to bring to the next appointment.
Before and after a hip or knee procedure
Scan before surgery to record how you move now, then scan again through recovery to see how your walking and your sit-to-stand have changed. Take the comparison to your surgeon or physiotherapist — they decide what it means for your recovery.
Before you start
These tests were written for a clinician standing beside you. Do not do them alone.
- Have a second person with you for every timed trial.
- Use the chair the app asks for: the sit-to-stand needs a straight-backed chair with no arms, placed against a wall; the walking test uses a standard armchair. Either way it must be stable and unable to slide.
- Wear your regular shoes and keep your walking aid within reach.
- Clear the 10-foot path: no rugs, no cords, good lighting, turning space at the end.
Stop straight away if
you feel pain, dizziness, breathlessness or unsteadiness. The test is never worth a fall.
Do not test if you have
- had a fall in the past week, or an unhealed injury
- dizziness or lightheadedness on standing
- been told not to move about unaided
- chest pain or breathlessness right now
- no way to stand and walk without someone physically supporting you
What the evidence does and does not show
We publish the protocols, the reference ranges and the limitations, because a number without its context is not useful.
A good score is not a clean bill of health
In a systematic review and meta-analysis of community-dwelling older adults, pooled sensitivity of the Timed Up and Go was 0.31 at the 13.5-second cutoff (Barry et al., BMC Geriatrics, 2014). Roughly two in three people who go on to fall pass the test. It should not be used on its own to judge anyone's risk.
Unsupervised home use is not validated
The most relevant validation of markerless motion capture for these tests (Bertrand et al., PLOS Digital Health, 2026; n = 228) was limited to supervised in-clinic use, with a clinician giving all instruction, and its participants averaged 61.6 years — younger than the people we build for.
Conditions change the result
Camera-based scoring degrades with dark or loose clothing, poor lighting, uncontrolled flooring and camera distance beyond roughly five metres. Published accuracy also varies across skin tones and body types, which is a limitation we state rather than gloss.
Setup is what makes the number mean anything
A person who tests barefoot, or without the cane they normally use, produces a result that is not comparable to the reference range they are shown. The chair and footwear rules are not pedantry.
Sources: CDC STEADI assessment materials; Podsiadlo D, Richardson S (J Am Geriatr Soc, 1991); Shumway-Cook, Brauer & Woollacott (2000); Barry et al. (BMC Geriatrics, 2014); Bertrand et al. (PLOS Digital Health, 2026); APTA and Shirley Ryan AbilityLab test-and-measure entries.
For clinics and care providers
Running mobility tests across a population?
Balance Scan is built on CaptureProof, the HIPAA-compliant platform clinicians already use to capture and review medical media. Talk to us about supervised deployments, study protocols and reporting.
Important
Balance Scan is a general wellness product. It is not a medical device, and it does not diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any medical condition. It is not a substitute for a professional assessment.
The reference ranges shown are drawn from published research and are provided for information only. Always speak to your doctor or physiotherapist before making decisions about your health — and particularly if you have had a fall or are worried about falling.