Symeonidou Evangelia-Regkina, Ferris Daniel P
J. Crayton Pruitt Family Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, United States.
International Max Planck Research School for Systems and Cognitive Neuroscience, University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany.
Front Hum Neurosci. 2022 Apr 25;16:748930. doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2022.748930. eCollection 2022.
Improving dynamic balance can prevent falls in humans with neurological and mechanical deficits. Dynamic balance requires the neural integration of multisensory information to constantly assess the state of body mechanics. Prior research found that intermittent visual rotations improved balance training during walking on a narrow beam, but limitations from the immersive virtual reality headset hindered balance training effectiveness overall. We theorized that intermittent visual occlusions with electrically controlled liquid crystal glasses would overcome the previous limitations of the immersive virtual reality headset and provide a means to enhance dynamic balance training efficacy. Forty healthy young individuals walked on a treadmill-mounted balance beam for 30 min (20 subjects with intermittent visual occlusions and 20 subjects with unperturbed vision). Balance performance, in number of step-offs of the beam, improved by 78% for the visual occlusions group on the same day of the training, a near fourfold improvement compared to the 21% improvement for the unperturbed vision group ((38) = -5.2, < 0.001). The difference between groups was also apparent 2 weeks later testing for retention (60% improvement for the visual occlusions group, 5% for the unperturbed vision group; (38) = -4.2, < 0.001). Intermittent visual occlusions are likely a simple method for enhancing balance training in dynamic motor tasks.
改善动态平衡可以预防患有神经和机械功能缺陷的人跌倒。动态平衡需要多感官信息的神经整合，以不断评估身体力学状态。先前的研究发现，间歇性视觉旋转改善了在窄梁上行走时的平衡训练，但沉浸式虚拟现实头显的局限性总体上阻碍了平衡训练的效果。我们推测，使用电控液晶眼镜进行间歇性视觉遮挡将克服沉浸式虚拟现实头显以前的局限性，并提供一种提高动态平衡训练效果的方法。40名健康的年轻人在安装在跑步机上的平衡梁上行走30分钟（20名受试者进行间歇性视觉遮挡，20名受试者视觉不受干扰）。在训练当天，视觉遮挡组的平衡表现（以从梁上踏出的步数计）提高了78%，与视觉不受干扰组21%的提高相比，提高了近四倍（t(38)=-5.2，p<0.001）。两周后进行的留存测试中，两组之间的差异也很明显（视觉遮挡组提高了60%，视觉不受干扰组提高了5%；t(38)=-4.2，p<0.001）。间歇性视觉遮挡可能是一种在动态运动任务中增强平衡训练的简单方法。
