Postural control was measured in 214 human subjects ranging in age from 7 to 81 y. Sensory organization tests measured the magnitude of anterior-posterior body sway during six 21 s trials in which visual and somatosensory orientation cues were normal, altered (by rotating the visual surround and support surface in proportion to the subject's sway), or vision eliminated (eyes closed). No age-rel...

OBJECTIVE To study the relation between a mental task (silent backward counting) and posture in patients with vestibular deficits and to study the role of attention. STUDY DESIGN In Experiment 1, postural sway and performance on the mental task were measured in a 2 x 2 dual-task design (with or without mental task and calf stimulation). In Experiment 2 a similar design was used, the only diff...

Body sway and vibration perception in the lower limbs were measured in 32 normal subjects and 25 patients with peripheral neuropathies; nerve conduction studies were also performed in the patients with neuropathies. Body sway was measured by means of force-plate posturography, and three methods were used to assess vibration perception: a neurothesiometer, a semiquantitative tuning fork, and the...

Poor postural balance is one of the major risk factors for falling in normal pressure hydrocephalus (NPH). Postural instability in the clinic is commonly assessed based upon force platform posturography. In this study we focused on the identification of changes in sway characteristics while standing quiet in patients with NPH before and after shunt implantation. Postural sway area and sway radi...

On land, the spatial magnitude of postural sway (i.e., the amount of sway) tends to be greater when participants look at the horizon than when they look at nearby targets. By contrast, on ships at sea, the spatial magnitude of postural sway in young adults has been greater when looking at nearby targets and less when looking at the horizon. Healthy aging is associated with changes in the moveme...

OBJECTIVES To investigate whether a "standard" sized (that is, a size that would be prescribed by a physiotherapist) elastic bandage (S-bandage) around the knee of subjects with knee osteoarthritis (OA) would, in the short term (a) reduce pain, (b) improve knee joint proprioception, and (c) decrease sway in comparison with a looser (L-bandage). METHODS In a cross over, within-subject study, 6...

Body sway, the total length of the sway of the center of foot pressure (CFP) and maximum walking speed were examined with and without AFO in eight post-stroke hemiparetic patients. Without AFO, the CFP moved towards the non-affected limb and the body sway was large. Wearing AFO, the CFP shifted to the midposition and the body sway became small. Without AFO, the time to walk the prescribed dista...

Standing balance control relies on multisensory feedback, but little is known about the influence of periodically varying sounds on this process. The level of sensorimotor activation has been shown to be highly correlated with the concept of musical groove. We presented musical stimuli with high and low groove ratings to participants (N=40) as center of pressure (CoP) was recorded using a force...

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...

Upright stance in humans is inherently unstable, requiring corrective action based on spatial-orientation information from sensory systems. One might logically predict that environments providing access to accurate orientation information from multiple sensory systems would facilitate postural stability. However, we show that, after a period in which access to accurate sensory information was r...