Moving from stable standing to single-limb stance or an up-on-the-toes position: the importance of vision to dynamic postural control
Frost, Sorcha-Sinead Hartley, Shaun Rodacki, A.L.F. Barrett, Brendan T.
Frost, Sorcha-Sinead
Hartley, Shaun
Rodacki, A.L.F.
Barrett, Brendan T.
Publication Date
2024-07-23
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(c) 2024 The Authors. This is an Open Access article distributed under the Creative Commons CC-BY license which allows the copying and sharing of the work with others (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
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openAccess
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2024-07-03
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Abstract
Understanding the contribution vision has to dynamic balance control may help in understanding where/why loss of balance occurs during everyday locomotion. The current study determined how body-centre-of-mass (BCoM) dynamics and postural stability when moving to and holding a single-limb-stance (SS) or an up-on-the-toes (UTT) position were affected by visual occlusion. From standing on a force platform, 18 adults (mean (SD) 26.7 (4.8) years; 1.73 (0.08) m; 84.0 (22.9) kg; 7 females) completed repeated trials (x3) with and without vision in which they moved to either a SS or an UTT position (order countered-balanced), and attempted to hold that position for 2 (SS) or 5 (UTT) seconds before returning to standing. UTT trials were also repeated at a fast speed, and SS trials were repeated using both the dominant and non-dominant limb. BCoM dynamics were assessed by analysing the displacement and peak velocity of the centre-of-pressure (CoP) when moving to and from the SS and UTT positions. Balance stability was the variability in the CoP displacement/velocity when holding these positions. Results indicate that under visual occlusion, the peak CoP velocity when moving to the SS or UTT position was reduced (ES, 0.67 and 0.68, respectively), suggesting greater caution. Both the variability in the CoP displacement/velocity when holding these positions and the peak CoP velocity when returning to flat-standing increased (SS: ES, 1.0 and 0.86, respectively; UTT: ES 1.26 and 0.66, respectively), suggesting, respectively, greater instability and poorer control. The poorer control in SS trials, occurred when returning to standing from the SS position held on the non-dominant limb, and correspondingly, the reduction in SS duration when vision was occluded was greater for the non-dominant limb trails (limb-vision interaction; p=0.042). This suggests that movements initiated/controlled by the non-dominant limb are more reliant on visual feedback than those initiated/controlled by the dominant limb.
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Published version
Citation
Buckley JG, Frost S, Hartley S et al (2024) Moving from stable standing to single-limb stance or an up-on-the-toes position: the importance of vision to dynamic postural control. PLoS ONE. 19(7): e0307365.
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Article