Trend change analysis in the assessment of body balance during posture adjustment in reaction to anterior-posterior ground perturbation

Piotr Wodarski; Marta Chmura; Michał Szlęzak; Grzegorz Bajor; Marek Gzik; Jacek Jurkojć

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0301227

Trend change analysis in the assessment of body balance during posture adjustment in reaction to anterior-posterior ground perturbation

PLoS One. 2024 Apr 30;19(4):e0301227. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0301227. eCollection 2024.

Authors

Piotr Wodarski¹, Marta Chmura¹, Michał Szlęzak^{2

3}, Grzegorz Bajor⁴, Marek Gzik¹, Jacek Jurkojć¹

Affiliations

¹ Faculty of Biomedical Engineering, Department of Biomechatronics, Silesian University of Technology, Gliwice, Poland.
² Fizjosport Medical Center, Gliwice, Poland.
³ Association of Neurophysiological-Orthopaedic Manipulative Physical Therapists, Gliwice, Poland.
⁴ Department of Human Anatomy, Medical University of Silesia, Slaskie, Poland.

Abstract

Postural adjustments (PA) occur to counteract predictable perturbations and can be impaired as a result of musculoskeletal and neurological dysfunctions. The most common way to detect PA is through electromyography measurements or center of pressure (COP) position measurements, where analysis in time domain and frequency domain are the most common. Aim of the research was to determine whether a new method of analyzing stabilographic measurements-the COP trend change analysis (TCI) of temporary posture corrections- can expand understanding of changes in balance strategy connected with PA. The study group involved 38 individuals (27women, 11men) aged 23±2.6 years. Measurements were performed using a stabilographic platform placed on a perturbation platform. The tests involved three measurements with forward and backward momentary movements of the platform. Participants were tested in three conditions-knowing the nature, time and direction of perturbation (Tr3), knowing only the nature of perturbation (Tr2) and without any information about the perturbation (Tr1). Statistically significant differences were revealed in the last second of Tr3 for the mean velocity of COP (p<0.05) and for two TCI parameters-TCI_dV (p<0.05) and TCI_dS (p<0.01). The increase in TCI_dV was related to the increase in the mean distance between trend changes (TCI_dS) and constant value of the mean time between trend changes (TCI_dT). The increase of the mean value of TCI_dS was the result of smaller number of posture corrections with the distance 0-2 mm and lager number with the distance 4-6 mm. Obtained results proved that the TCI analysis is a method enabling an extended analysis of PA, indicating the nature of changes occurring in posture corrections-longer momentary jumps of COP-related to a change in the strategy of maintaining balance before a known disorder, which has not been analyzed in this type of research so far.

Copyright: © 2024 Wodarski et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Adult
Electromyography
Female
Humans
Male
Movement / physiology
Postural Balance* / physiology
Posture* / physiology
Young Adult

Grants and funding

The publication is supported by the Rector's habilitation grant implemented under the Excellence Initiative - Research University program. Silesian University of Technology, grant number 07/030/SDU/10-07-01. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.