The effect of vibrotactile feedback on postural sway during locomotor activities

Abstract

BackgroundAlthough significant progress has been achieved in developing sensory augmentation methods to improve standing balance, attempts to extend this research to locomotion have been quite limited in scope. The goal of this study was to characterize the effects of two real-time feedback displays on locomotor performance during four gait-based tasks ranging in difficulty.MethodsSeven subjects with vestibular deficits used a trunk-based vibrotactile feedback system that provided real-time feedback regarding their medial-lateral (M/L) trunk tilt when they exceeded a subject-specific predefined tilt threshold during slow and self-paced walking, walking along a narrow walkway, and walking on a foam surface. Two feedback display configurations were evaluated: the continuous display provided real-time continuous feedback of trunk tilt, and the gated display provided feedback for 200 ms during the period immediately following heel strike. The root-mean-square (RMS) trunk tilt and percentage of time below the tilt thresholds were calculated for all locomotor tasks.ResultsUse of continuous feedback resulted in significant decreases in M/L trunk tilt and increases in percentage times below the tilt thresholds during narrow and foam trials. The gated display produced generally smaller changes.ConclusionsThis preliminary study demonstrated that use of continuous vibrotactile feedback during challenging locomotor tasks allowed subjects with vestibular deficits to significantly decrease M/L RMS trunk tilt. Analysis of the results also showed that continuous feedback was superior.

Vibrotactile Stimulation as an Instructor for Mimicry-Based Physical Exercise

“…Tactile instructions were found applicable in both complementing (Studies 1 and 2) and substituting (Study 1) the typically used visual exercise instructions. With this regard the results are in line with earlier studies showing that tactile stimulation (e.g., vibration) can be practical in various contexts of physical exercise (e.g., [10][11][12]) and rehabilitation (e.g., [8,9]). However, typical set up in the earlier concepts has been that tactile stimulation provides feedback derived from the exerciser's own actions in the context of self-contained exercise.…”

“…The current stimulus duration has been earlier used in wearable vibration systems for body movement instructions by, for example, Sienko et al [9] and Jansen et al [17]. The vibration frequency was within the best sensitivity range of Pacinian corpuscle mechanoreceptors around 10-500 Hz [18] and was found to be well perceived in the preexperimental pilot test.…”

“…Wearable vibrotactile feedback systems have proven to be usable, for example, in gait retraining [8], body balance control [9], rowing [10], snowboarding [11], and even swimming [12]. There is also evidence that appropriately designed vibrotactile signals can be intuitively associated with cues suggesting, for example, to accelerate and decelerate the speed of movement [13].…”

Ergonomic Challenges for Astronauts during Space Travel and the Need for Space Medicine

“…This allows mission planners to propose and agree mitigation risks, some of which will include the development and refinement of countermeasures. There are many reviews which summarise the potential and actual countermeasures which are in put in place and a representative set is cited for further interest [2, 7,10,34,50,53,57,71,72,74,[76][77][78][79][80][81]. In Table 2, countermeasures in operation today are described for each of the physiological and psychological effects of spaceflight described in the preceding sections.…”

A Balance Training System using a Haptic Device and Its Evaluations

“…이는 안정된 표면에 손가락의 접촉이 몸의 공간 위 치 및 방향을 검출하기 위한 기준 좌표계(reference frame) 정 보를 중추 신경계에 제공하여 자세 제어를 위한 근육 활성화 를 예측 할 수 있도록 한다고 해석된다. 또한, 정지 혹은 이 동 환경에 상관없이 가벼운 접촉 혹은 가벼운 그립을 통해서 무게 중심이 불안정해지는 방향에 대한 정보를 햅틱 피드백 를 통해 사용자에게 제공할 경우 몸의 균형 능력이 향상 되 는 것을 확인하였다 [10,11] …”