Does the Level of Difficulty in Balancing Tasks Affect Haptic Sensitivity Via Light Touch?

Magre, Fernanda Lopes; Costa, Thaís Delamuta Ayres da; Paiva, Ana Clara de Souza; Moraes, Renato; Mauerberg-deCastro, Eliane

doi:10.1080/00222895.2019.1565529

Cited by 6 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 26 publications

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“…Instead, the mean level of the spectrum was much reduced for all sensory conditions on solid BoS in both ML and AP directions. The effect of touch on the mean level seems to be proportionally stronger on foam in keeping with the observation that unstable balance enhances the haptic sensitivity ( 157 ). Generally speaking, it seems that the distinct qualitative contributions to the stabilisation process by vision, touch, or both are hard-wired.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 81%

Specific Posture-Stabilising Effects of Vision and Touch Are Revealed by Distinct Changes of Body Oscillation Frequencies

2021

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We addressed postural instability during stance with eyes closed (EC) on a compliant surface in healthy young people. Spectral analysis of the centre of foot pressure oscillations was used to identify the effects of haptic information (light-touch, EC-LT), or vision (eyes open, EO), or both (EO-LT). Spectral median frequency was strongly reduced by EO and EO-LT, while spectral amplitude was reduced by all “stabilising” sensory conditions. Reduction in spectrum level by EO mainly appeared in the high-frequency range. Reduction by LT was much larger than that induced by the vision in the low-frequency range, less so in the high-frequency range. Touch and vision together produced a fall in spectral amplitude across all windows, more so in anteroposterior (AP) direction. Lowermost frequencies contributed poorly to geometric measures (sway path and area) for all sensory conditions. The same subjects participated in control experiments on a solid base of support. Median frequency and amplitude of the spectrum and geometric measures were largely smaller when standing on solid than on foam base but poorly affected by the sensory conditions. Frequency analysis but not geometric measures allowed to disclose unique tuning of the postural control mode by haptic and visual information. During standing on foam, the vision did not reduce low-frequency oscillations, while touch diminished the entire spectrum, except for the medium-high frequencies, as if sway reduction by touch would rely on rapid balance corrections. The combination of frequency analysis with sensory conditions is a promising approach to explore altered postural mechanisms and prospective interventions in subjects with central or peripheral nervous system disorders.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 81%

Specific Posture-Stabilising Effects of Vision and Touch Are Revealed by Distinct Changes of Body Oscillation Frequencies

2021

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“…The role of light touch becomes even more effective when standing on an unstable surface such as a foam pad or a beam (15)(16)(17). When standing on a beam elevated above ground, earth-fixed light touch reduced CoP motion both with and without visual input (15). The same study also showed that bimanual touch improved postural balance, especially when standing on a higher beam where fear of falling became an issue.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 83%

Mechanical Effects of Canes on Postural Control: Beyond Perceptual Information

Russo

Lee

Hogan

et al. 2021

Preprint

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BackgroundNumerous studies showed that postural balance improves through light touch on a stable surface highlighting the importance of haptic information, seemingly downplaying the mechanical contributions of the support. The present study examined the mechanical effects of canes for assisting balance in healthy individuals challenged by standing on a beam. MethodsSixteen participants supported themselves with two canes, one in each hand, and applied minimal, preferred, or maximum force onto the canes. They positioned the canes in the frontal plane or in a tripod configuration. ResultsResults showed that canes significantly reduced the variability of the center of pressure and center of mass to the same level as when standing on the ground. In the preferred condition, participants exploited the altered mechanics by resting their arms on the canes and, in the tripod configuration, allowing for larger CoP motions in the task-irrelevant dimension. Increasing the exerted force beyond the preferred level yielded no further benefits, in fact had a destabilizing effect on the canes: the displacement of the hand on the cane handle increased with the force. ConclusionsDespite the challenge of a statically unstable system, these results show that, in addition to augmenting perceptual information, using canes can provide mechanical benefits and challenges. First, the controller minimizes effort channeling noise in the task-irrelevant dimensions and, second, resting the arms on the canes but avoiding large forces that would have destabilizing effects. However, if maximal force is applied to the canes, the instability of the support needs to be counteracted, possibly by arm and shoulder stiffness.

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“…16 An easy postural task demand results in little or no effect during haptic tasks (e.g., light touch, anchoring, dog handling). 19,25 Increased levels of difficulty in balance tasks-particularly when sensory deprivation is manipulated together with degrees of task difficulty-demand successful solutions for a variety of reasons. The first is the fear of falling.…”

Section: Haptic Information Affects Body Sway According To Surface Height Elevationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…They assumed that, even though the older adults showed difficulties with the walking task, their walking pattern was typical for their age and that, perhaps, the degree of difficulty was overestimated in the experimental design. Magre et al 19 demonstrated through "light touch" that the less difficult the balance task, the poorer the use of haptic cues.…”

Section: Haptic Information Affects Body Sway According To Surface Height Elevationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Furthermore, other studies using haptic tasks (e.g., light touch, haptic anchoring) have demonstrated that the postural task itself has to be challenging enough (e.g., unstable surfaces, vision occlusion) so that an individual can better exploit the haptic information of an external source to serve the postural task. 19 Our main question here was, "How do individuals use the dynamics of a perturbed extrinsic task context (i.e., exposure to the potentially unpredictable behavior of a leashed dog walking on a treadmill) as haptic input to improve their balance during a standing postural task? Also, does this dynamic haptic interdependency affect the human postural outcome as the task's difficulty escalates (i.e., various height surface elevations)?"…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Haptic contact with a walking dog improves human balance during a quiet tandem task with various levels of difficulty

Mauerberg-deCastro

Figueiredo

Iasi

et al. 2021

BJMB

Self Cite

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BACKGROUND: When a person walks a dog, information from variables of their own postural control is integrated with haptic information from the dog’s movements (e.g., direction, speed of movement, pulling forces). AIM: We examined how haptic information provided through contact with a moving endpoint (here, the leash of a dog walking on a treadmill) influenced an individual’s postural control during a quiet tandem standing task with and without restricted vision and under various elevations of the support surface (increased task difficulty levels). METHOD: Adults performed a 30-second quiet tandem stance task on a force platform while holding a leash attached to a dog who walked on a treadmill parallel to the force platform. Conditions included: haptic contact (dog and no-dog), vision constraint (eyes open, EO, and eyes closed, EC), and surfaces (4 heights). RESULTS: Interaction between haptic condition and vision showed that contact with the dog leash reduced root mean square (RMS) and mean sway speed (MSS). RMS showed that the highest surface had the greatest rate of sway reduction during haptic contact with EC, and an increase with EO. CONCLUSION: The dog’s movements were used as a haptic reference to aid balance when eyes were closed. In this condition, contact with the dog’s leash reduced the extent of sway variability on the higher surfaces.

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Does the Level of Difficulty in Balancing Tasks Affect Haptic Sensitivity Via Light Touch?

Cited by 6 publications

References 26 publications

Specific Posture-Stabilising Effects of Vision and Touch Are Revealed by Distinct Changes of Body Oscillation Frequencies

Specific Posture-Stabilising Effects of Vision and Touch Are Revealed by Distinct Changes of Body Oscillation Frequencies

Mechanical Effects of Canes on Postural Control: Beyond Perceptual Information

Haptic contact with a walking dog improves human balance during a quiet tandem task with various levels of difficulty

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