PURPOSE The objective of the study is to evaluate the degree of balance disorders in patients with surgical treatment of ankle fractures with the use of stabilometric examinations. METHODS The subjects in the study were 21 patients with ankle fractures treated surgically, within one year of the procedure. The control group comprised 20 healthy subjects. The balance was evaluated with the use ...

The transfer of load from one leg to another is an essential component in walking, but sense organs that signal this process have rarely been identified. We used high-speed digital imaging and neurophysiological recordings to characterize activities of tibial campaniform sensilla, receptors that detect forces via cuticular strains, in the middle legs of cockroaches during walking. Previous stud...

BACKGROUND The aim of this study was to quantify postural control ability in a group with concussion compared with a healthy control group. METHOD Fifteen concussion patients (4 females, 11 males) and a group of fifteen age- and sex-matched controls were recruited. Participants were tested during the performance of the three stance variants (bilateral, tandem and unilateral) of the balance er...

Descriptive data were collected regarding static standing balance of 71 noninstitutionalized elderly women as they performed two timed balance tests. All subjects performed the sharpened Romberg test and the one-legged stance test on each foot in four test conditions: 1) eyes open, 2) eyes closed, 3) shoes on, and 4) shoes off. Subjects were grouped and analyzed according to the following age r...

Performance in a dual task is typically worse than performance in a single task due to the sharing of limited cognitive capacity. The present study found the opposite results when the task involved postural control in non-typical standing. Thirtysix children aged 4-9 years stood on a force plate for 10 seconds with a normal or heel-to-toe stance. In the dual-task condition, they also performed ...

In this paper, an application of the dynamics and control of redundant robotic systems is presented in order to investigate the feasibility of functional electrical stimulation assisted arm-free standing for paraplegics. Through the inverse dynamics analysis of a three dimensional dynamic model of quiet standing, several sets of the minimum number of degrees of freedom (DOF) such that there are...

Methods Two groups of participants were recruited: 14 with no history of ankle injury (age 22.6 ± 0.7 yrs, 10 females) and 14 with a history of two or more ankle sprains (Age 21.1 ± 0.2 yrs, 9 females, 6 ± 2.5 sprains). Participants stood in single leg stance on an inversion perturbation platform. The perturbation platform dropped 15 degrees in the frontal plane on a trigger activated by the re...

The purpose of this study was to analyze the differences in standing balance during dominant and nondominant one-legged stance among athletes of different sports and sedentary subjects. The right-footed subjects of four groups (sedentary, n = 20; soccer, n = 20; basketball, n = 20; windsurfer n = 20) underwent 5-sec unipedal (left and right foot) stabilometric analysis with open eyes and closed...

The aim of this study was to characterize prolonged standing and its effect on postural control in elderly individuals in comparison to adults. It is unknown how elderly individuals behave during prolonged standing and how demanding such a task is for them. We recorded the center of pressure (COP) position of 14 elderly subjects and 14 adults while they performed prolonged standing (30 min) and...