fatigue can induce postural instability and even lead to falls. However, most current methods to delay or reduce fatigue require long preparatory time, or large and expensive equipment. We propose a convenient method to alleviate postural instability due to fatigue. We paid attention to that fatigue and aging share similar neurophysiological deterioration of sensory-motor function. considering that stochastic resonance via sub-sensory mechanical vibration increases postural stability in the elderly, we propose that sub-sensory insole vibration reduces the negative effect of fatigue on postural control. We performed experiments with 21 young and healthy adult participants, and demonstrated that insole vibration compensates for the loss of balance ability due to fatigue. the sub-sensory insole vibration restored both the area of center of pressure and the complexity of the time series of the motor output after fatigue to the pre-fatigue levels. the insole units generating the vibration were completely concealed in shoes and controlled by a smart phone. this compact implementation contrasts with the cumbersome procedure of current solutions to fatigue-induced postural instability.
Previous studies have shown that absence or reduction of cutaneous sensory feedback can diminish human motor performance under maximum effort. However, it has not been explored whether any appropriate intervention in the cutaneous sensory input can augment the output motor performance, particularly in motor tasks such as jumping that involve the kinematic chain of the entire body. Using shoes with active vibrating insoles, we applied mechanical vibration to the soles of 20 young and healthy adults and evaluated the change in the jump height and muscle activation using within-participants repeated measures. The noise-like vibration having an amplitude of 130% of the sensory threshold of each participant led to an average increase of 0.38 cm in the jump height (p = 0.008) and activation of the rectus femoris of the dominant leg (p = 0.011). These results indicate that application of a properly designed cutaneous stimulus to the soles, the distal end effectors of motor tasks, can augment the output performance by involving the prime movers distant from the end effector.
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