The ability to increase the base of support and recover stability is limited in its generalisation for different balance perturbation tasks

Jil Bosquée; Julian Werth; Gaspar Epro; Thorben Hülsdünker; Wolfgang Potthast; Kenneth Meijer; Rolf Ellegast; Kiros Karamanidis

doi:10.1186/s11556-021-00274-w

The ability to increase the base of support and recover stability is limited in its generalisation for different balance perturbation tasks

Eur Rev Aging Phys Act. 2021 Oct 5;18(1):20. doi: 10.1186/s11556-021-00274-w.

Authors

Jil Bosquée¹, Julian Werth¹, Gaspar Epro¹, Thorben Hülsdünker², Wolfgang Potthast³, Kenneth Meijer⁴, Rolf Ellegast⁵, Kiros Karamanidis⁶

Affiliations

¹ Sport and Exercise Science Research Centre, School of Applied Sciences, London South Bank University, 103 Borough Road, SE1 0AA, London, UK.
² Department of Exercise and Sport Science, LUNEX International University of Health, Exercise and Sports, Differdange, Luxembourg.
³ Institute of Biomechanics and Orthopedics, German Sport University Cologne, Cologne, Germany.
⁴ Department of Nutrition and Movement Sciences, NUTRIM School of Nutrition and Translational Research in Metabolism, Maastricht University Medical Centre+, PO Box 616, 6200 MD, Maastricht, The Netherlands.
⁵ Institute for Occupational Safety and Health of the German Social Accident Insurance (IFA), Sankt Augustin, Germany.
⁶ Sport and Exercise Science Research Centre, School of Applied Sciences, London South Bank University, 103 Borough Road, SE1 0AA, London, UK. k.karamanidis@lsbu.ac.uk.

Abstract

Background: The assessment of stability recovery performance following perturbations contributes to the determination of fall resisting skills. This study investigated the association between stability recovery performances in two perturbation tasks (lean-and-release versus tripping).

Methods: Healthy adults (12 young: 24 ± 3 years; 21 middle-aged: 53 ± 5 years; 11 old: 72 ± 5 years) were suddenly released from a forward-inclined position attempting to recover stability with a single step. In a second task, all participants experienced a mechanically induced trip during treadmill walking. To assess dynamic stability performance, the antero-posterior margin of stability (MoS), the base of support (BoS), and the rate of increase in BoS were determined at each foot touchdown (TD) for both tasks.

Results: Only weak to moderate correlations in dynamic stability performance parameters were found between the two tasks (0.568 > r > 0.305, 0.001 < p < 0.04). A separation of participants according to the number of steps required to regain stability in the lean-and-release task revealed that multiple- (more than one step) compared to single-steppers showed a significantly lower MoS at TD (p = 0.003; g = 1.151), lower BoS at TD (p = 0.019; g = 0.888) and lower rate of increase in BoS until TD (p = 0.002; g = 1.212) after release. Despite these profound subgroup differences in the lean-and-release task, no differences between multiple- and single-steppers were observed in the stability recovery performance during tripping.

Conclusion: The results provide evidence that the ability to effectively control dynamic stability following a sudden balance disturbance in adults across a wide age range is limited in its generalisation for different perturbation tasks.

Keywords: Dynamic stability; Falls; Gait perturbation; Lean-and-release test; Reactive stepping; Tripping.