"What needs to change?" is a reasonable question to walk in with. It is also the wrong first question, and there is a simple reason why.
If we don't establish where someone starts, it becomes much harder to show objectively what changed.
Every meaningful claim about change is a comparison between two measurements. Remove the first one and the second is a number floating in space — interesting, maybe, but impossible to interpret.
What is a physical baseline?
A physical baseline is the relevant movement measurement recorded before anything is changed: pressure through the Sensor Sling, pressure distribution through the mat, angle and orientation, timing, sequence and the movement response that carries them.
It is not an assessment of what is wrong. It is not a diagnosis and not a prediction. It is a starting point, saved — deliberately, measurably, with the same instrument that will be used again later.
Why your baseline is individual
Two people with similar complaints can produce very different baselines, because a baseline reflects the person's own current loading and movement behaviour — their history, their habits, their current response to demand.
This is why baselines are never compared against each other. A baseline is only ever compared against the same person's later measurement. Individual variation is the reason the measurement exists, not noise to be averaged away.
Pressure and distribution at baseline
Baseline pressure and distribution recording answer a question no questionnaire can: how is load actually being taken through the body right now, and where does it concentrate?
Peak values matter less than structure — where pressure concentrates, how it shifts through the movement, and whether the shift is smooth or abrupt. That structure becomes the thing the retest either repeats or changes.
Angle and movement at baseline
Movement provides the physical context for every sensor reading. Baseline observation records Sling angle and orientation changes, and how the person currently loads, initiates and sequences movement under demand.
The observation and the measurement are taken together on purpose: the numbers are only meaningful inside the movement that produced them.
Timing and sequence
Baseline timing records when measurable changes occur within the movement. Baseline sequence records the order in which they occur.
These are the dimensions where small changes show first — often before anyone could feel or describe a difference — which is precisely why they are recorded before change rather than after.
Why repeatability matters
A single baseline pass could be an outlier. Baseline recording therefore includes repetition under comparable conditions, establishing whether the recorded pattern is stable enough to serve as a reference. If it is not stable, the instability itself is recorded — an unstable pattern is information too.
Change the input
Only after the baseline exists does the input change. In the I AM 900 process this is the practitioner-directed calibration — a specific, deliberate change, not a general "try this and see". The change is applied to a body whose starting point is already saved.
Retest under comparable conditions
The retest repeats the comparable measurement — same instrument configuration, same measurement conditions, comparable movement. Comparability is the whole point: if the retest conditions differ from baseline conditions, the comparison says nothing.
This is also why the retest happens when it happens rather than immediately: the comparable conditions have to genuinely exist.
Baseline vs current
When baseline and retest sit side by side, the question finally becomes answerable.
THE QUESTION ISN'T ONLY:
"HOW DO YOU FEEL?"
IT IS ALSO:
"WHAT CHANGED?"
How you feel remains part of the picture, and subjective experience is never dismissed. But feeling is reported; the baseline and retest are recorded. The comparison between them is what turns a programme into a measured process rather than an opinion.
Start at the Trauma Pathway, or read why the retest matters so much in Why Re-testing Matters.
