scholarly journals The association of reactive balance control and spinal curvature under lumbar muscle fatigue

PeerJ ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
pp. e11969
Author(s):  
Erika Zemková ◽  
Alena Cepková ◽  
José M. Muyor
Keyword(s):  
Muscle Fatigue ◽  
Fatigue Test ◽  
Balance Control ◽  
Spinal Curvature ◽  
Balance Test ◽  
Spinal Posture ◽  
Additional Load ◽  
Postural Responses ◽  
Lumbar Muscle ◽  
Reactive Balance

Background Although low back fatigue is an important intervening factor for physical functioning among sedentary people, little is known about its possible significance in relation to the spinal posture and compensatory postural responses to unpredictable stimuli. This study investigates the effect of lumbar muscle fatigue on spinal curvature and reactive balance control in response to externally induced perturbations. Methods A group of 38 young sedentary individuals underwent a perturbation-based balance test by applying a 2 kg load release. Sagittal spinal curvature and pelvic tilt was measured in both a normal and Matthiass standing posture both with and without a hand-held 2 kg load, and before and after the Sørensen fatigue test. Results Both the peak anterior and peak posterior center of pressure (CoP) displacements and the corresponding time to peak anterior and peak posterior CoP displacements significantly increased after the Sørensen fatigue test (all at p < 0.001). A lumbar muscle fatigue led to a decrease of the lumbar lordosis in the Matthiass posture while holding a 2 kg load in front of the body when compared to pre-fatigue conditions both without a load (p = 0.011, d = 0.35) and with a 2 kg load (p = 0.000, d = 0.51). Also the sacral inclination in the Matthiass posture with a 2 kg additional load significantly decreased under fatigue when compared to all postures in pre-fatigue conditions (p = 0.01, d = 0.48). Contrary to pre-fatigue conditions, variables of the perturbation-based balance test were closely associated with those of lumbar curvature while standing in the Matthiass posture with a 2 kg additional load after the Sørensen fatigue test (r values in range from −0.520 to −0.631, all at p < 0.05). Conclusion These findings indicate that lumbar muscle fatigue causes changes in the lumbar spinal curvature and this is functionally relevant in explaining the impaired ability to maintain balance after externally induced perturbations. This emphasizes the importance for assessing both spinal posture and reactive balance control under fatigue in order to reveal their interrelations in young sedentary adults and predict any significant deterioration in later years.

scholarly journals The Relationship between Reactive Balance Control and Back and Hamstring Strength in Physiotherapists with Non-Specific Back Pain: Protocol for a Cross-Sectional Study

2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (11) ◽  
pp. 5578
Author(s):  
Erika Zemková ◽  
Eva Ďurinová ◽  
Andrej Džubera ◽  
Henrieta Horníková ◽  
Juraj Chochol ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Back Pain ◽  
Center Of Pressure ◽  
Balance Control ◽  
Balance Test ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
Maximum Voluntary Isometric Contraction ◽  
Postural Responses ◽  
Muscle Groups ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Reactive Balance

Back pain is one of the most costly disorders among the worldwide working population. Within that population, healthcare workers are at a high risk of back pain. Though they often demonstrate awkward postures and impaired balance in comparison with healthy workers, there is no clear relationship between compensatory postural responses to unpredictable stimuli and the strength of related muscle groups, in particular in individuals with mild to moderate back pain. This paper presents a study protocol that aims to evaluate the relationship between peak anterior to peak posterior displacements of the center of pressure (CoP) and corresponding time from peak anterior to peak posterior displacements of the CoP after sudden external perturbations and peak force during a maximum voluntary isometric contraction of the back and hamstring muscles in physiotherapists with non-specific back pain in its early stages. Participants will complete the Oswestry Disability Questionnaire. Those that rate their back pain on the 0–10 Low Back Pain Scale in the ranges 1–3 (mild pain) and 4–6 (moderate pain) will be considered. They will undergo a perturbation-based balance test and a test of the maximal isometric strength of back muscles and hip extensors. We assume that by adding tests of reactive balance and strength of related muscle groups in the functional testing of physiotherapists, we would be able to identify back problems earlier and more efficiently and therefore address them well before chronic back disorders occur.

scholarly journals Development and piloting of a perturbation stationary bicycle robotic system that provides unexpected lateral perturbations during bicycling (the PerStBiRo system)

2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Shani Batcir ◽  
Yaakov Livne ◽  
Rotem Lev Lehman ◽  
Shmil Edelman ◽  
Lavi Schiller ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Older People ◽  
Postural Sway ◽  
Balance Control ◽  
Robotic System ◽  
Treadmill Walking ◽  
Microsoft Kinect ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Reactive Control ◽  
Balance Test ◽  
Reactive Balance

Abstract Background Balance control, and specifically balance reactive responses that contribute to maintaining balance when balance is lost unexpectedly, is impaired in older people. This leads to an increased fall risk and injurious falls. Improving balance reactive responses is one of the goals in fall-prevention training programs. Perturbation training during standing or treadmill walking that specifically challenges the balance reactive responses has shown very promising results; however, only older people who are able to perform treadmill walking can participate in these training regimes. Thus, we aimed to develop, build, and pilot a mechatronic Perturbation Stationary Bicycle Robotic system (i.e., PerStBiRo) that can challenge balance while sitting on a stationary bicycle, with the aim of improving balance proactive and reactive control. Methods This paper describes the development, and building of the PerStBiRo using stationary bicycles. In addition, we conducted a pilot randomized control trial (RCT) with 13 older people who were allocated to PerStBiRo training (N = 7) versus a control group, riding stationary bicycles (N = 6). The Postural Sway Test, Berg Balance Test (BBS), and 6-min Walk Test were measured before and after 3 months i.e., 20 training sessions. Results The PerStBiRo System provides programmed controlled unannounced lateral balance perturbations during stationary bicycling. Its software is able to identify a trainee’s proactive and reactive balance responses using the Microsoft Kinect™ system. After a perturbation, when identifying a trainee’s trunk and arm reactive balance response, the software controls the motor of the PerStBiRo system to stop the perturbation. The pilot RCT shows that, older people who participated in the PerStBiRo training significantly improved the BBS (54 to 56, p = 0.026) and Postural Sway velocity (20.3 m/s to 18.3 m/s, p = 0.018), while control group subject did not (51.0 vs. 50.5, p = 0.581 and 15 m/s vs. 13.8 m/s, p = 0.893, respectively), 6MWT tended to improve in both groups. Conclusions Our participants were able to perform correct balance proactive and reactive responses, indicating that older people are able to learn balance trunk and arm reactive responses during stationary bicycling. The pilot study shows that these improvements in balance proactive and reactive responses are generalized to performance-based measures of balance (BBS and Postural Sway measures).

scholarly journals The Next Step in Understanding Impaired Reactive Balance Control in People With Stroke: The Role of Defective Early Automatic Postural Responses

2017 ◽  
Vol 31 (8) ◽  
pp. 708-716 ◽  
Author(s):  
Digna de Kam ◽  
Jolanda M. B. Roelofs ◽  
Amber K. B. D. Bruijnes ◽  
Alexander C. H. Geurts ◽  
Vivian Weerdesteyn
Keyword(s):  
Balance Control ◽  
Postural Responses ◽  
Automatic Postural Responses ◽  
Reactive Balance

scholarly journals Examining Different Motor Learning Paradigms for Improving Balance Recovery Abilities Among Older Adults, Random vs. Block Training—Study Protocol of a Randomized Non-inferiority Controlled Trial

2021 ◽  
Vol 15 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hadas Nachmani ◽  
Inbal Paran ◽  
Moti Salti ◽  
Ilan Shelef ◽  
Itshak Melzer
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Balance Control ◽  
Controlled Trial ◽  
Training Session ◽  
Real Life ◽  
Community Dwelling ◽  
Analysis Of Covariance ◽  
Balance Function ◽  
Balance Test ◽  
Reactive Balance

Introduction: Falls are the leading cause of fatal and nonfatal injuries among older adults. Studies showed that older adults can reduce the risk of falls after participation in an unexpected perturbation-based balance training (PBBT), a relatively novel approach that challenged reactive balance control. This study aims to investigate the effect of the practice schedule (i.e., contextual interference) on reactive balance function and its transfer to proactive balance function (i.e., voluntary step execution test and Berg balance test). Our primary hypothesis is that improvements in reactive balance control following block PBBT will be not inferior to the improvements following random PBBT.Methods and Analysis: This is a double-blind randomized controlled trial. Fifty community-dwelling older adults (over 70 years) will be recruited and randomly allocated to a random PBBT group (n = 25) or a block PBBT group (n = 25). The random PBBT group will receive eight training sessions over 4 weeks that include unexpected machine-induced perturbations of balance during hands-free treadmill walking. The block PBBT group will be trained by the same perturbation treadmill system, but only one direction will be trained in each training session, and the direction of the external perturbations will be announced. Both PBBT groups (random PBBT and block PBBT) will receive a similar perturbation intensity during training (which will be customized to participant’s abilities), the same training period, and the same concurrent cognitive tasks during training. The generalization and transfer of learning effects will be measured by assessing the reactive and proactive balance control during standing and walking before and after 1 month of PBBT, for example, step and multiple steps and fall thresholds, Berg balance test, and fear of falls. The dependent variable will be rank transformed prior to conducting the analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) to allow for nonparametric analysis.Discussion: This research will explore which of the balance retraining paradigms is more effective to improve reactive balance and proactive balance control in older adults (random PBBT vs. block PBBT) over 1 month. The research will address key issues concerning balance retraining: older adults’ neuromotor capacities to optimize training responses and their applicability to real-life challenges.Clinical Trial Registration: Helsinki research ethics approval has been received (Soroka Medical Center approval #0396-16-SOR; MOH_2018-07-22_003536; www.ClinicalTrials.gov, NCT04455607).

scholarly journals Reactive Balance Control for Legged Robots under Visco-Elastic Contacts

2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 353
Author(s):  
Thomas Flayols ◽  
Andrea Del Prete ◽  
Majid Khadiv ◽  
Nicolas Mansard ◽  
Ludovic Righetti
Keyword(s):  
Inverse Dynamics ◽  
State Of The Art ◽  
Balance Control ◽  
Contact Stiffness ◽  
Poor Performance ◽  
Admittance Control ◽  
Inverse Dynamics Control ◽  
Rigid Contact ◽  
Reactive Balance ◽  
Shed Light

Contacts between robots and environment are often assumed to be rigid for control purposes. This assumption can lead to poor performance when contacts are soft and/or underdamped. However, the problem of balancing on soft contacts has not received much attention in the literature. This paper presents two novel approaches to control a legged robot balancing on visco-elastic contacts, and compares them to other two state-of-the-art methods. Our simulation results show that performance heavily depends on the contact stiffness and the noises/uncertainties introduced in the simulation. Briefly, the two novel controllers performed best for soft/medium contacts, whereas “inverse-dynamics control under rigid-contact assumptions” was the best one for stiff contacts. Admittance control was instead the most robust, but suffered in terms of performance. These results shed light on this challenging problem, while pointing out interesting directions for future investigation.

scholarly journals Cortical Engagement Metrics During Reactive Balance Are Associated With Distinct Aspects of Balance Behavior in Older Adults

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jacqueline A. Palmer ◽  
Aiden M. Payne ◽  
Lena H. Ting ◽  
Michael R. Borich
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Balance Control ◽  
Network Activity ◽  
Beta Activity ◽  
Balance Function ◽  
Potential Biomarker ◽  
Beta Power ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Motor Cortical ◽  
Reactive Balance

Heightened reliance on the cerebral cortex for postural stability with aging is well-known, yet the cortical mechanisms for balance control, particularly in relation to balance function, remain unclear. Here we aimed to investigate motor cortical activity in relation to the level of balance challenge presented during reactive balance recovery and identify circuit-specific interactions between motor cortex and prefrontal or somatosensory regions in relation to metrics of balance function that predict fall risk. Using electroencephalography, we assessed motor cortical beta power, and beta coherence during balance reactions to perturbations in older adults. We found that individuals with greater motor cortical beta power evoked following standing balance perturbations demonstrated lower general clinical balance function. Individual older adults demonstrated a wide range of cortical responses during balance reactions at the same perturbation magnitude, showing no group-level change in prefrontal- or somatosensory-motor coherence in response to perturbations. However, older adults with the highest prefrontal-motor coherence during the post-perturbation, but not pre-perturbation, period showed greater cognitive dual-task interference (DTI) and elicited stepping reactions at lower perturbation magnitudes. Our results support motor cortical beta activity as a potential biomarker for individual level of balance challenge and implicate prefrontal-motor cortical networks in distinct aspects of balance control involving response inhibition of reactive stepping in older adults. Cortical network activity during balance may provide a neural target for precision-medicine efforts aimed at fall prevention with aging.

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