Trunk Sway Measures of Postural Stability During Clinical Balance Tests: Effects of Age

Abstract

Accurate measurement of trunk angular sway during stance and gait tasks provides a simple way of reliably measuring changes in balance stability with age and could prove useful when screening for balance disorders of those prone to fall.

Changes in multi-segmented body movements and EMG activity while standing on firm and foam support surfaces

“…However, Paulus et al found that visual stabilization decreases with increasing distances to steady visual targets (Paulus et al 1984). In this study, we observed that vision only significantly reduced the body movements and EMG activity while standing on foam, which concurs with findings in other foam studies (Brandt 1991;Gill et al 2001;Allum et al 2002;Blackburn et al 2003) This supports previous studies showing that unreliable information from the somatosensory receptors increases the reliance on visual and/or vestibular inputs in postural control (Brandt 1991;Rosengren et al 2007). Moreover, spectral separation analysis showed that vision …”

“…Several studies that have used a foam support surface show that trunk movements increase significantly in patients with balance deficits (Gill et al 2001;Allum et al 2002;Blackburn et al 2003). Our study, showing that healthy subjects also increased their hip and shoulder movements while standing on a compliant foam surface, confirms that assessment of trunk movements can provide essential information about postural control.…”

“…The destabilizing effects of standing on a foam surface have also been investigated previously in several studies (Blackburn et al 2003;Jeka et al 2004;Vrancken et al 2005). However, there are few kinematical studies of how this destabilizing effect is expressed at key points of articulation between the major body segments (Gill et al 2001;Allum et al 2002;Blackburn et al 2003;. Several of these studies have only investigated the trunk movements, disregarding the movements in the other body segments.…”

Concurrent validation of the tandem walk test as a measure of dynamic walking balance in a healthy population

“…The TWT test has been utilized as the dynamic walking balance component of several validated test batteries regarding fall prediction in the elderly, such as the Fullerton Advanced Balance Scale [3,4], the LIFE pilot study protocol [5], Good Walkers Test [6], and the EPIDOS Prospective Study balance protocol [7]. The TWT has been utilized as a test of dynamic walking balance to determine gait stability and pathological quantification including prediction of falls in the elderly population [3,9,[34][35][36][37][38][39][40], diagnose ataxia and other vestibular disorders [29,41], test for vertigo [42], tropical ataxic neuropathy [43], traumatic brain injury [40], peripheral neuropathy [44], and functional mobility [45][46][47][48]. The TWT is considered a clinically efficacious test of dynamic balance in medical text books [29,49] and for research purposes [2,50].…”

Valoración de la capacidad funcional en el ámbito domiciliario y en la clínica: Nuevas posibilidades de aplicación de la acelerometría para la valoración de la marcha, equilibrio y potencia muscular en personas mayores

“…Recientemente, se han incorporado sistemas portátiles de registro basados en la acelerometría, que incorporan varios ace-lerómetros triaxiales que actúan como múltiples sensores para medir aceleraciones gravitacionales e inerciales, aplicables al estudio del movimiento [30][31][32] . Estos sistemas, que podrían ser considerados de alto techo en base a la calidad de la información proporcionada, han supuesto un gran avance, al posibilitar estudios fuera del laboratorio.…”