Can Patients Outside the Recommended Age Range Use BIA Devices?

Charder's Body Composition Analyzers have a specified age range for measurement accuracy. For example, the recommended age range for best results is between 6 and 85 years old for the MA601 and MA801. This is not due to safety concerns - BIA is safe for all ages, and you can safely measure someone that is outside of the recommended age range with no problem!

Body Composition results need to be validated against gold standards to evaluate accuracy, and improve continuously algorithms. Research ethical boards are understandably averse to approving research that may involve radiation (in the case of DXA) and other risk factors for children, especially those under 6 years old. What's more, a 3-year old may be unable to even reach the hand electrodes, or stand on the device long enough to conduct measurements for data collection. As such, while children under 6 can use Charder'sdevices safely, it is hard to prove with empirical data that the same level of accuracy can be guaranteed for a 2-year old, compared to a 6-year old, or other results within the recommended age range.

The same applies to those over 85 years old - while there are no safety concerns, gathering sufficient measurement data for healthy adults over this age can be difficult, especially for the purposes of data validation, where enough males and females within an age bracket, of various different ethnicities are required. Charder expands the age range only after we have sufficient data, ensuring that we stand by the results provided by our devices.