Standing ride type vehicles like electric skateboards have been developed in recent years. Although these vehicles have advantages as being compact and low cost due to their simple structure, it is necessary to improve the riding quality. Therefore, the system aiding riders to keep their balance on a skateboard by feedback control or feedforward control has been required. To achieve it, a human...

Taekwondo (TKD) is a popular sport among adolescents. This study aims to (a) compare the balance performance between adolescent TKD practitioners at different levels of expertise with nonpractitioners and (b) determine the sensory system(s) that contributed to the balance function in adolescents with and without TKD training. Subjects with >5 years of TKD training (n = 11), <4 years of training...

OBJECTIVE To evaluate the short-term effects of vestibular rehabilitation on symptom, disability, balance, and postural stability in patients with chronic unilateral vestibular dysfunction. DESIGN Randomized controlled trial. SETTING Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, University Hospital. PARTICIPANTS Patients (N=42) with chronic vestibular dysfunction were divided into e...

BACKGROUND Little is known regarding the relationship between balance impairments and physical activity in COPD. There has been no study investigating the relationship between balance and objectively measured physical activity. Here we investigated the association between balance and physical activity measured by an activity monitor in elderly COPD patients. MATERIALS AND METHODS Twenty-two o...

OBJECTIVES To compare balance in individuals with symptomatic knee osteoarthritis (OA) and in age-, gender- and body-mass-matched controls using simple clinical measures. METHODS Thirty-three people with OA and 33 controls participated. Static postural sway [antero-posterior (AP), lateral and total] was measured using a swaymeter on two different surfaces and under two visual conditions. Dyna...

The fact that we as humans are bipeds and locomote over the ground with one foot in contact (walking), no feet in contact (running), or both feet in contact (standing) creates a major challenge to our balance control system. Because two-thirds of our body mass is located two-thirds of body height above the ground we are an inherently unstable system unless a control system is continuously actin...

The ability to perceive the direction of whole-body motion during standing may be critical to maintaining balance and preventing a fall. Our first goal was to quantify kinesthetic perception of whole-body motion by estimating directional acuity thresholds of support-surface perturbations during standing. The directional acuity threshold to lateral deviations in backward support-surface motion i...

This study investigated the effects on standing balance of random vibrations applied to the plantar side of the feet by vibrating insoles in subjects with neuropathy and nondisabled subjects. In four different conditions (eyes open or closed and with or without an attention-demanding task [ATD]), subjects with neuropathy secondary to diabetes mellitus (n = 17) and nondisabled subjects (n = 15) ...

Human walking has previously been described as "controlled falling." Some computational models, however, suggest that gait may also have self-stabilizing aspects requiring little CNS control. The fore-aft component of walking may even be passively stable from step to step, whereas lateral motion may be unstable and require motor control for balance, as through active foot placement. If this is ...

Upright stance on a balance board is a skill requiring complex rearrangement of the postural control. Despite the large use of these boards in training the standing posture, a comprehensive analysis of the learning process underlying the control of these devices is lacking. In this paper learning to maintain a stable stance on a multiaxial oscillating board was studied by analyzing performance ...