Protective Movement After Trauma: What Can We Measure?
After an event, a person may present with observable differences in movement or loading — a shift of weight, a guarded reach, a slower or stiffer sequence through a task. In the I AM 900 approach, that is where the work starts: with what can be measured. Not with what happened to you — with where you are now. This article stays strictly on the physical track. The Sling measures the physical response; it does not measure psychological trauma, fear, memory or emotion, and it does not detect trauma or the cause of the original event.
Start With What We Can Measure
The wider principle is set out in Trauma and the Physical Response: Start With What We Can Measure. Applied here: after an event, the observable response — how a person currently moves and loads — is treated as a measurable record of the present, not as evidence about the event.
Start With the Baseline
The baseline records how the person currently moves and loads during a defined task, under the same conditions each time. Why We Establish a Baseline Before Asking What Needs to Change explains the logic. The person becomes their own comparison.
What Can the Sensor Sling Measure?
Where the instrument configuration supports it for the task, the I AM 900 Sensor Sling records supported physical measurements: sling pressure — distributed pressure at relevant Sling measurement locations; pressure distribution — how that recorded pressure is distributed through the movement; angle / orientation where supported; timing — when measurable events occur; sequence — the order in which they occur; repeatability — how consistently the recorded response appears across comparable trials (see Why One Response Isn't Enough).
What Does the Pressure Mat Add?
Where used, the pressure mat records ground/contact pressure, loading and distribution for the same defined task. The Sensor Sling itself also measures pressure — at its own locations. Where both are used they provide different measurements relating to the same task, complementary and never combined into a score.
What the Measurement Does Not Establish
A measured protective or guarded movement pattern is an observation about the current physical response. It does not establish why that response exists. Measurement does not diagnose the cause of the original event, does not read psychological meaning into movement, and does not claim the tissue "holds" anything. Language like "the body remembers" is treated here as metaphor, not measurement. The record is: this is the current observable response, and here is the comparison.
Change the Input, Retest, Compare
Calibration applies a defined, practitioner-directed change to the input or conditions of the task — see What Calibration Means in Human Movement. The same task is then repeated under the same conditions, and the retest is compared with the baseline: what changed in the observable response. The comparison is information about the response. It is not an explanation of the original event and not a guarantee of recovery.
Where This Fits
The trauma pathway is at /trauma; the method at /method; the calibration process at /calibrate; the instrument at I AM 900 Sensor Sling. Related reading: Pressure, Timing and Protective Movement: What Are We Actually Measuring? and What Does Your Physical Response Tell Us?.
