The measurement vocabulary is used a lot across this platform. It is worth slowing down and defining each term individually — because each records something different, and none of them means what a loose reading might suggest.
One boundary applies to everything in this article: a measured pattern may provide information about the person's current physical response. It does not reveal trauma, and it does not prove a cause.
PRESSURE
Pressure recorded through the Sensor Sling where supported: how much force is being taken through the supported structure, and how that force changes as the movement unfolds.
A pressure reading is a fact about loading at a moment in time. Rising or shifting pressure may provide information about the person's current physical response — it does not tell us why the response is happening.
DISTRIBUTION
How pressure and loading are distributed: which sensor zones carry more, which carry less, and how the balance moves through the movement.
Distribution is often the most immediately useful measurement, because asymmetry and concentration are specific in a way that general discomfort is not. It remains a description of current loading — not an explanation of its origin.
ANGLE
Orientation, and changes in Sling angle during the movement. Angle changes are recorded as part of the physical response, and they interact with pressure and distribution: a change in orientation alters how load is distributed.
Recorded angle is a property of the response, measured — not judged.
SPEED
The rate of measurable change, where the instrument configuration supports it — how quickly a recorded value moves from one level to another.
Two responses can reach the same value at very different rates, and the rate itself may provide information about the person's current physical response. Where rate is not supported by the configuration, it is simply not claimed.
TIMING
When measurable changes occur. Timing places a measured change inside the movement: early, late, or at a particular phase.
Timing frequently differs between people whose peak measurements look similar — which is why timing is recorded alongside magnitude rather than instead of it.
SEQUENCE
The order in which measurable changes occur. A movement is not a single event; it is a chain of loading, shifting and stabilising events, and measurement can record the order they happen in.
Sequence is where the five-stage operational framework earns its keep: changes in order often show up in a retest before peak values move.
REPEATABILITY
Whether comparable responses recur when the measurement is repeated under comparable conditions. Repeatability is the difference between noticing something once and knowing it is characteristic — and it has its own full treatment in Why One Response Isn't Enough.
PROTECTIVE MOVEMENT
"Protective movement" describes an observed pattern: the body taking load, or limiting a movement, in a way that appears protective or guarded — preferring one side, hesitating before a phase of movement, limiting a range.
The observation is real and measurable. The interpretation has to stay careful. A movement may appear protective or guarded, but a sensor measurement alone does not tell us why. A protective movement pattern may provide information about the person's current physical response. It does not prove trauma, and it does not establish what happened.
Measured together, bounded together
Pressure, distribution, angle, speed, timing, sequence and repeatability are recorded through the I AM 900 Sensor Sling and pressure mat — as the physical context, with practitioner questions providing the context sensors alone cannot.
That is what is actually being measured. Nothing more is claimed, and nothing less is needed.
For the applied layer — how timing and sequence are measured and compared after injury — see Timing and Sequence After Injury: Measuring the Order of the Response.
