Background

The sensory electrical stimulation applied to the postural muscles provides additional sensory information that improves postural balance but this improvement seems to be highly subject-dependent.

Research question

The first aim was to analyse the effects of sensory electrical stimulation on postural balance and the second aim was to analyse these effects depending on intrinsic postural balance abilities of subjects.

Methods

Twenty healthy young male participants completed a monopedal postural task with sensory electrical stimulation (1 ms; 10 Hz; 7 ± 2 mA i.e., twice the intensity corresponding to the sensory threshold) and without sensory electrical stimulation. Pearson’s product-moment correlations were performed on centre of pressure parameters to assess whether the participant’s balance abilities at baseline were related to the beneficial effects of sensory electrical stimulation.

Results

The results showed positive correlations for all the variables measured (i.e., with r² from 0.32 to 0.35). Evidence suggests that subjects’ abilities to take advantage from electrically induced additional afferents depended on participants’ intrinsic balance abilities. In fact, subjects who exhibited the worst postural balance at baseline (i.e. without stimulation) benefited more from the effects of sensory electrical stimulation than subjects who displayed the best postural balance at baseline.

Significance

In physically impaired subjects, as part of functional rehabilitation, sensory electrical stimulation would be particularly interesting in order to limit their risk of falling.

中文翻译：

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调节姿势平衡的感觉电刺激的最佳利用取决于参与者的内在平衡能力

背景

应用于姿势肌肉的感觉电刺激提供了额外的感觉信息，可改善姿势平衡，但这种改善似乎高度依赖于受试者。

研究问题

第一个目的是分析感觉电刺激对姿势平衡的影响，第二个目的是根据受试者的内在姿势平衡能力分析这些影响。

方法

20 名健康的年轻男性参与者通过感觉电刺激（1 毫秒；10 赫兹；7 ± 2 mA，即对应于感觉阈值的强度的两倍）和没有感觉电刺激完成了单足姿势任务。Pearson 的积矩相关性是在压力参数的中心进行的，以评估参与者在基线时的平衡能力是否与感觉电刺激的有益效果有关。

结果

结果显示所有测量的变量呈正相关（即，r ²从0.32 到0.35）。有证据表明，受试者利用电诱导的额外传入的能力取决于参与者的内在平衡能力。事实上，在基线时表现出最差姿势平衡（即没有刺激）的受试者比在基线时表现出最佳姿势平衡的受试者更多地受益于感觉电刺激的效果。

意义

在身体受损的受试者中，作为功能康复的一部分，感觉电刺激将特别有趣，以限制他们跌倒的风险。