Muscular and kinematic responses to unexpected translational balance perturbation: A pilot study in healthy young adults

Cheuk Ying TONG, Ringo Tang-Long ZHU, Yan To LING, Eduardo Mendonça SCHEEREN, Freddy Man Hin LAM, Hong FU, Christina Zong-Hao MA

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlespeer-review

3 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Falls and fall-related injuries are significant public health problems in older adults. While balance-controlling strategies have been extensively researched, there is still a lack of understanding regarding how fast the lower-limb muscles contract and coordinate in response to a sudden loss of standing balance. Therefore, this pilot study aims to investigate the speed and timing patterns of multiple joint/muscles’ activities among the different challenges in standing balance. Twelve healthy young subjects were recruited, and they received unexpected translational balance perturbations with randomized intensities and directions. Electromyographical (EMG) and mechanomyographical (MMG) signals of eight dominant-leg’s muscles, dominant-leg’s three-dimensional (3D) hip/knee/ankle joint angles, and 3D postural sways were concurrently collected. Two-way ANOVAs were used to examine the difference in timing and speed of the collected signals among muscles/joint motions and among perturbation intensities. This study has found that (1) agonist muscles resisting the induced postural sway tended to activate more rapidly than the antagonist muscles, and ankle muscles contributed the most with the fastest rate of response; (2) voluntary corrective lower-limb joint motions and postural sways could occur as early as the perturbation-induced passive ones; (3) muscles reacted more rapidly under a larger perturbation intensity, while the joint motions or postural sways did not. These findings expand the current knowledge on standing-balance-controlling mechanisms and may potentially provide more insights for developing future fall-prevention strategies in daily life. Copyright © 2023 by the authors.

Original languageEnglish
Article number831
JournalBioengineering
Volume10
Issue number7
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Jul 2023

Citation

Tong, C. Y., Zhu, R. T.-L., Ling, Y. T., Scheeren, E. M., Lam, F. M. H., Fu, H., & Ma, C. Z.-H. (2023). Muscular and kinematic responses to unexpected translational balance perturbation: A pilot study in healthy young adults. Bioengineering, 10(7), Article 831. https://doi.org/10.3390/bioengineering10070831

Keywords

  • Translational balance perturbation
  • Moving platform
  • Muscle activation
  • Muscle co-contraction
  • Onset latency
  • Time to peak
  • Electromyography (EMG)
  • Mechanomyography (MMG)

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Muscular and kinematic responses to unexpected translational balance perturbation: A pilot study in healthy young adults'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.