Postural Balance

Posture control appears deeply impaired in patients with severe Acquired Brain Injury (ABI). One of the main goals of neurorehabilitation specialists is to try to assess this neural function in a standardized manner. However, the tests available to evaluate posture control recovery after brain damage were developed for patients with focal neurological signs. We therefore developed a new test, the Trunk Recovery Scale (TRS). To evaluate the inter-rater reliability, internal consistency, external validity, and sensitivity of TRS in patients with ABI. Validation study. We examined 59 patients hospitalized after a brain injury in the Intensive and the Extensive Rehabilitation Units of our hospital. Patients with diagnosis of severe ABI with the capacity to respond to simple verbal orders and with a Level of Cognitive Functioning Scale (LCF scale) ≥ 4. Three raters independently assessed 20 subjects. One of the raters also assessed 39 additional subjects using TRS, Trunk Control Test (TC...

Low back pain affects the person's ability to keep balance, especially in challenging conditions. The purpose of this study was to determine the immediate effects of Pilates exercises on postural sway and dynamic balance of young individuals with non-specific low back pain. Controlled laboratory design. Forty-six participants with non-specific low back pain were randomized to a Pilates (n=23, 10 males; age: 21.8±3.2years) and a control group (n=23, 9 males; age: 22.8±3.6years). Postural sway was assessed with a force platform and dynamic balance with the Star Excursion Balance Test, before and after the intervention or rest period. To assess postural sway, participants stood still on an unstable surface set on the force plate for 90s, with eyes closed. The intervention lasted 20min and consisted on four Pilates exercises: single leg stretch (level 1), pelvic press (level 1), swimming (level 1) and kneeling opposite arm and leg reach. At baseline, no differences were found betwee...

Affective states, anxiety in particular, have been shown to negatively influence human postural control efficiency as measured by posturographic means, while exposure to a full-length mirror image of one's body exerts a stabilizing effect. We tested the hypothesis that body image concerns and preoccupations would relate negatively to this stabilising effect. Sixty-six healthy students, who screened negative for psychiatric disorders, completed rating scales for anxiety, depression and body image concerns. Posturography recordings of body sway were taken under three conditions: with eyes closed, looking at a vertical bar and looking at a full-length mirror. The Eyes Open/Mirror Stabilometric Quotient [EOMQ=(sway path with eyes closed/sway path looking at the mirror)x100], an index of how much postural control is stabilized by mirror feedback in comparison to the visual vertical bar condition, was significantly inversely related to body image concerns and preoccupations, and to trait anxiety. This finding confirms the impact of emotional factors on human postural control, which warrant further studies. If confirmed in clinical populations characterized by high levels of body image disturbances, e.g. eating disorders, it could lead to developments in the assessment and monitoring of these patients.

This study examined how young healthy adults learn stilt walking. Ten healthy male university students attended
two sessions of testing held on two consecutive days. In each session participants performed three blocks of 10 stiltwalking
trials. Angular movements of head and trunk and the spatial and temporal gait parameters were recorded.
When walking on stilts young adults improved their gait velocity through modifications of step parameters while
maintaining trunk movements close to that observed during normal over-ground walking. Participants improved
their performance by increasing their step frequency and step length and reducing the double support percentage
of the gait cycle. Stilts are often used for drywall installation, painting over-the-head areas and raising workers
above the ground without the burden of erecting scaffolding. This research examines the locomotor adaptation
as young healthy adults learn the complex motor task of stilt walking; a task that is frequently used in the
construction industry.

The objective of this study was to determine differences in electromyographic (EMG) activity of the soleus (SOL), vastus lateralis (VL), biceps femoris (BF), abdominal stabilizers (AS), upper lumbar erector spinae (ULES), and lumbo-sacral erector spinae (LSES) muscles while performing squats of varied stability and resistance. Stability was altered by doing the squat movement on a Smith machine, a free squat, and while standing on two balance discs. Fourteen male subjects performed the movements. Activities of the SOL, AS, ULES, and LSES were highest during the unstable squat and lowest with the Smith machine protocol (p < 0.05). Increased EMG activity of these muscles may be attributed to their postural and stabilization role. Furthermore, EMG activity was higher during concentric contractions compared to eccentric contractions. Performing squats on unstable surfaces may permit a training adaptation of the trunk muscles responsible for supporting the spinal column (i.e., erector...

Movement is performed against a background of subtle postural adjustments that counteract destabilizing forces imposed by the movement. Despite the importance of these postural adjustments to the safe and efficient performance of movement, little is known about the properties of these postural accompaniments. The purpose of this article is twofold. First, it provides a review of properties of postural adjustments that accompany a variety of limb and trunk movements. Second, a schema for the coordination of posture and movement is proposed. This schema suggests that a central nervous system model of body dynamics is essential to anticipatory control of posture during movement.

The paper presents a novel control approach for the robot-assisted motion augmentation of disabled subjects during the standing-up manoeuvre. The main goal of the proposal is to integrate the voluntary activity of a person in the control scheme of the rehabilitation robot. The algorithm determines the supportive force to be tracked by a robot force controller. The basic idea behind

This study examined the effect of the handball warm-up program (HWP) on dynamic balance among elite adolescent handball players. In this case, 24 handball players were randomly assigned into experimental warm-up and control groups. The HWP was performed over 8 weeks (3 times per week). Dynamic balance before and after the intervention training programs were measured by the Biodex Balance System (BBS) and Y Balance test for the dominant (DL) and non-dominant legs (non-DL). After HWP training, BBS scores significantly improved in the overall (OSI) (30.4% and 31.1%), anterior-posterior (APSI) (44.6% and 35.2%), and medial-lateral stability indexes (MLSI) (38.8% and 43%) for both DL and non-DL. Post-training, the Y Balance test exhibited significant improvements in OSI (13.2% and 10.6%), anterior (17.2% and 12.6%), posteriolateral (12.8% and 11.3%), and posteriomedial stability indexes (9.2% and 7.9%) with DL and non-DL, respectively. In conclusion, dynamic balance improved overall afte...