Midlife mobility assessment from the pocket: agreement and consistency between smartphone placement configurations

Pocket/thigh smartphone placement yields strong agreement with standardized lower-back placement for midlife mobility, including STS repetition count (r=0.996) and TUG total duration (ICC=0.881).

• Why it matters: Lower-back fixation can hinder convenient, real-world monitoring, yet subtle midlife mobility declines need practical smartphone-based balance and functional assessments.
• What they did: Forty-six adults aged 40–64 simultaneously recorded smartphone motion at both lower back and pocket/thigh during static balance, 30-second STS, and TUG, comparing correlations, intraclass correlations, and Bland-Altman agreement.
• The result: Balance sway and TUG turning measures showed strong or good relative agreement, while pocket/thigh sway was systematically higher; STS power and maximal vertical velocity were less consistent, supporting pocket-based monitoring with placement-sensitive caveats.

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