Age-related Differences in Postural Control: Role of Sensory Information

Abstract

Postural control requires the integration of sensory information in the visual,vestibular, and senses the body systems. Also research has shown that the sensorysystems involved in postural control, decreased with increasing age. The aim ofthis study was to investigate the effects of age and manipulation of sensoryinformation on the postural control. For this purpose, displacement of the anterior- posterior, middle – lateral and speed center of pressure (COP) 22 elderly (59/54± 2/31 year) and 25 young men (23/12±3/26 year) that selected based on targetand availability from Shahid Chamran University students and staff in fourdifferent sensory conditions including 1) open eyes an hard surface 2) eyes openon soft surface3) eyes closed on hard surface 4) eyes closed on soft surface duringthree 30-second efforts with 5 min rest intervals between efforts evaluated. Afterinvestigating the data normality with kolmogorov smirnov and equality of varianceusing the leven test, data using multivariable variance analysis and one-wayvariance analysis was analyzed. Significant differences was observed betweenyoung and elderly groups in all conditions, also removes the visual and plantarproprioceptive information lead to increased sway in the two groups that increasewas greater in the elderly than in young group. This results indicate theimportance of visual information and plantar proprioceptive in postural control,especially in the elderly.

Keywords

• elderly
• young
• postural control
• open eye
• closed eye
• hard surface
• soft surface