Rosenblum Uri, Lavi Adi, Fischer Arielle G, Parmet Yisrael, Haim Amir, Handelzalts Shirley
Department of Physical Therapy, Faculty of Health Sciences, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer Sheva, Israel.
Department of Health Sciences, Brunel University London, London, UK.
R Soc Open Sci. 2024 Dec 11;11(12):241156. doi: 10.1098/rsos.241156. eCollection 2024 Dec.
When losing balance, upper-body movements serve as mechanical aids to regain stability. However, it remains unclear how these movements contribute to dynamic stability during recovery from a lateral loss of balance while walking with arm restriction. We aimed to (i) quantify the effect of arm restriction on gait stability and upper-body velocities and (ii) characterize upper-body kinematic strategies in response to lateral surface translations under different arm restriction conditions. Healthy adults were exposed to lateral surface translations while walking on a computerized treadmill under three conditions: 'free arms', '1-arm restricted' and '2-arms restricted'. Dynamic stability and upper-body velocities for the first step after perturbation onset were extracted. We found decreased dynamic stability in the sagittal plane and increased trunk velocity in the '2-arms restricted' condition compared with the 'free arms' condition. Head and trunk movements in the medio-lateral plane were in opposite directions in 44.31% of responses. Additionally, significant trunk velocities were observed in the opposite direction to the perturbation-induced loss of balance. Our results support the contribution of increased upper-body velocities to balance responses following arm-restricted walking perturbations and suggest that the '2-arms restricted' condition may be utilized as a perturbation-based balance training, focusing on head and trunk responses.
当失去平衡时，上半身的动作可作为恢复稳定性的机械辅助手段。然而，在手臂受限行走时从侧向失衡恢复的过程中，这些动作如何促进动态稳定性仍不清楚。我们旨在：（i）量化手臂受限对步态稳定性和上半身速度的影响；（ii）描述在不同手臂受限条件下，上半身对侧向表面平移的运动学策略。健康成年人在计算机控制的跑步机上行走时，在三种条件下接受侧向表面平移：“自由手臂”、“单臂受限”和“双臂受限”。提取扰动开始后第一步的动态稳定性和上半身速度。我们发现，与“自由手臂”条件相比，“双臂受限”条件下矢状面的动态稳定性降低，躯干速度增加。在44.31%的反应中，头和躯干在中外侧平面的运动方向相反。此外，在与扰动引起的失衡相反的方向上观察到显著的躯干速度。我们的结果支持了手臂受限行走扰动后上半身速度增加对平衡反应的贡献，并表明“双臂受限”条件可作为一种基于扰动的平衡训练，重点关注头部和躯干的反应。
