The present paper reviews the development of postural adjustments during infancy. In the control of posture, two functional levels can be distinguished. The basic level deals with the generation of direction-specific adjustments, meaning that dorsal muscles are primarily activated when the body sways forward, whereas ventral muscles are primarily activated when the body sways backward. The seco...

BACKGROUND Postural stability analysis has shown that postural control is impaired in untreated idiopathic Parkinson's disease (IPD), even in the early stages of the disease. Vascular Parkinson's disease (VPD) lacks consensus clinical criteria or diagnostic tests. Moreover, the levodopa effect on postural balance remains undefined for IPD and even less so for VPD. OBJECTIVE To characterize po...

Postural control is a natural behavior that requires the spatial and temporal coordination of multiple muscles. Complex muscle activation patterns characterizing postural responses suggest the need for independent muscle control. However, our previous work shows that postural responses in cats can be robustly reproduced by the activation of a few muscle synergies. We now investigate whether a s...

abstract   background: postural instability has been identified as a potential precursor of falls in elderly subjects. postural stability in quiet stance is commonly assessed with center of pressure (cop) measures. the purpose of this study was to determine testretest reliability and minimal detectable change (mdc) for the center of pressure (cop) measures in the elderly subjects.   methods: ei...

CONTEXT Postural control and cognitive function are adversely affected by acute mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI). Whether postural-control deficits persist beyond the acute stage in individuals with a history of mTBI is unclear. OBJECTIVE To determine if postural-control deficits persist in individuals with a history of mTBI. DESIGN Retrospective cross-sectional study. SETTING Universit...

Few studies have been carried out to examine the relation between postural stability and subjective reports or feelings of motion sickness. Two views seem to exist on the relation between immersion in a virtual reality (VR) environment and subjective feelings of motion sickness. One predicts that the immersion induces both postural instability and motion sickness. Another view is that preimmers...

Many differences in postural responses have been associated with age and Parkinson's disease (PD), but until now there has been no quantitative model to explain these differences. We developed a feedback control model of body dynamics that could reproduce the postural responses of young subjects, elderly subjects, and subjects with PD, and we investigated whether the postural impairments of sub...

BACKGROUND The cerebellum integrates proprioceptive, vestibular and visual signals for postural control. Cerebellar patients with downbeat nystagmus (DBN) complain of unsteadiness of stance and gait as well as blurred vision and oscillopsia. OBJECTIVES The aim of this study was to elucidate the differential role of visual input, gaze eccentricity, vestibular and proprioceptive input on the po...

BACKGROUND This study investigated the effects of obesity on attentional resources allocated to postural control in seating and unipedal standing. METHODS Ten non obese adults (BMI = 22.4±1.3, age = 42.4±15.1) and 10 obese adult patients (BMI = 35.2±2.8, age = 46.2±19.6) maintained postural stability on a force platform in two postural tasks (seated and unipedal). The two postural tasks were ...

AIM Osteoporosis can cause vertebral fractures, which might lead to a flexed posture, impaired postural control and consequently increased fall risk. Therefore, the aim of the present review was to examine whether postural control of patients with osteoporosis, vertebral fractures, thoracic kyphosis and flexed posture is affected. Furthermore, instruments measuring postural control were evaluat...