postural function

User-Avatar interaction within augmented reality applications is rapidly increasing in frequency. Applications routinely place users in rooms with other, remote users embodied by photorealistic avatars, or require users to work with an avatar of a remote user to complete a task. During these types of interactions, it is often required to modify or redirect the posture of an avatar to achieve goals such as contact with or pointing at an object or maintaining eye gaze with the local user. A key limitation of modern redirection techniques is successfully preserving body posture, a critical component of nonverbal communication...

Studies of vertebrate bone biomechanics often focus on skeletal adaptations at upper extremes of body mass, disregarding the importance of skeletal adaptations at lower extremes. Yet mammals are ancestrally small and most modern species have masses under 5 kg, so the evolution of morphology and function at small size should be prioritized for understanding how mammals subsist. We examined allometric scaling of lumbar vertebrae in the small-bodied Philippine endemic rodents known as cloud rats, which vary in mass across two orders of magnitude (15...

INTRODUCTION: Individuals with cerebral palsy (CP) often present with altered motor control. This can be assessed selectively during sitting/lying with the Selective Control Assessment of the Lower Extremity (SCALE), or dynamically with the dynamic motor control index during walking (walk-DMC). Both approaches suggest that altered selective motor control relate to larger gait deviations. RESEARCH QUESTION: Does the walk-DMC provide valuable information in addition to the SCALE for estimating gait deviations in individuals with CP...

The elderly population is growing rapidly in the world and falls are becoming a big problem for society. Currently, clinical assessments of gait and posture include functional evaluations, objective, and subjective scales. They are considered the gold standard to indicate optimal mobility and performance individually, but their sensitivity and specificity are not good enough to predict who is at higher risk of falling. An innovative approach for fall prediction is the machine learning. Machine learning is a computer-science area that uses statistics and optimization methods in a large amount of data to make outcome predictions...

The perceptual and motor systems appear to have a set of movement primitives that exhibit certain geometric and kinematic invariances. Complex patterns and mental representations can be produced by (re)combining some simple motor elements in various ways using basic operations, transformations, and respecting a set of laws referred to as kinematic laws of motion. For example, point-to-point hand movements are characterized by straight hand paths with single-peaked-bell-shaped velocity profiles, whereas hand speed profiles for curved trajectories are often irregular and more variable, with speed valleys and inflections extrema occurring at the peak curvature...

Background: Chronic unilateral vestibulopathy (CUVP) is a common chronic vestibular syndrome; the mechanisms of central vestibular compensation in CUVP are rarely studied. Methods: This study analyzed the data of 18 patients with CUVP and 18 healthy controls (HCs) and used seed-based functional connectivity (FC) and voxel-mirrored homotopic connectivity (VMHC) analyses to explore the FC alterations. Results: Compared with HCs, patients with CUVP showed decreased FC between the left dorsolateral superior frontal gyrus and the right hippocampus; the left middle frontal gyrus and the right posterior cingulate gyrus, the right hippocampus, the right parahippocampal gyrus...

PURPOSE: Persistent postural-perception dizziness (PPPD) is a chronic subjective form of dizziness characterized by the exacerbation of dizziness with active or passive movement, complex visual stimuli, and upright posture. Therefore, we aimed to analyze the resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in patients with PPPD using fractional amplitude of low-frequency fluctuation (fALFF) and voxel-mirrored homotopic connectivity (VMHC) and evaluate the correlation between abnormal regions in the brain and clinical features to investigate the pathogenesis of PPPD...

OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to assess the postural balance in COPD patients with obstructive sleep apnoea (OSA). Physical activity, anxiety and depression symptoms, mood, and falls were also assessed in this population. METHODS: Moderate to severe COPD patients were assessed for laboratory and clinical postural balance (force platform and mini-balance evaluation systems test (Mini-BESTest)), physical activity (accelerometry), OSA (polysomnography), sleep quality (Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index), sleepiness (Epworth Sleepiness Scale), anxiety and depression symptoms (Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale), dyspnoea (modified Medical Research Council), clinical status (COPD Assessment Test) and mood (Brunel Mood Scale)...

PURPOSE OF REVIEW: We performed a narrative review of the recent findings in epidemiology, clinical presentation, mechanisms and treatment of vestibular migraine. RECENT FINDINGS: Vestibular migraine is an underdiagnosed condition that has a high prevalence among general, headache and neuro-otology clinics. Vestibular migraine has a bimodal presentation probably associated with a hormonal component in women. These patients could have a complex clinical phenotype including concomitant autonomic, inflammatory or connective tissue conditions that have a higher prevalence of psychological symptoms, which may mistakenly lead to a diagnosis of a functional neurological disorder...

The most severe form of spastic cerebral palsy (CP), which affects the arms and legs and often the face, is known as spastic quadriplegia. In addition to other developmental disabilities such as intellectual disability and seizures, it can cause difficulty in walking. Children with CP often have seizures as a result of brain injury, and spastic quadriplegic CP is typically associated with global developmental delay. For the purpose of addressing the unique motor and functional challenges associated with spastic quadriplegia, neurophysiotherapy is essential...

This study aimed to establish the relationship between the appendicular muscle mass index (AMMI), assessed from anthropometric variables, and the physical function of older people. Seventy-six older people participated in this study (72.03 ± 7.03 years). The participants underwent evaluations to determine their AMMI using anthropometry (weight, calf circumference, hip circumference, and knee height) and manual grip strength. Additionally, their physical function was evaluated using the 5-chair stand test, the 3-meter walk test, and the timed up and go test (TUG) to determine the strength of the lower limbs, the gait speed, and the dynamic balance, respectively...

OBJECTIVE: To assess intrarater reliability of ultrasound-determined measurements of skeletal muscle characteristics across different measurement outcomes, imaging techniques, and age groups. METHODS: 2D ultrasound images (B-mode) of the quadriceps were obtained from young (26 ± 4 year, n = 8 M, 8 F) and older (70 ± 7 year, n = 7 M, 5 F) adults on two occasions, separated by 6 ± 3 days...

BACKGROUND: Incorporating instrument measurements into clinical assessments can improve the accuracy of results when assessing mobility related to activities of daily living. This can assist clinicians in making evidence-based decisions. In this context, kinematic measures are considered essential for the assessment of sensorimotor recovery after stroke. The aim of this study was to assess the validity of using an Android device to evaluate kinematic data during the performance of a standardized mobility test in people with chronic stroke and hemiparesis...

BACKGROUND: In patients with diabetic polyneuropathy (DPN), differences in postural control due to losing the lower limb somatosensory information were reported. However, it is still unclear by which mechanisms the dynamic postural instability is caused. OBJECTIVES: This study aimed to investigate postural control differences and neuromuscular adaptations resulting from foot somatosensory loss due to DPN. METHODS: In this controlled cross-sectional study, fourteen DPN patients and fourteen healthy controls performed the Functional Reach Test (FRT) as a dynamic task...

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the effects of computerized wobble board exercise training (CWBET) and core stabilization exercise training (CSET) on balance performance, and exercise capacity in heart failure (HF) patients. DESING: Single-blind randomized controlled prospective study. SETTING: Cardiology department of a local university hospital. PARTICIPANTS: Fifty-one patients with HF with reduced ejection fraction, whose clinical status and medication had been stable for the previous three months, were included...

Interaction with the environment appears necessary for the maturation of sensorimotor and cognitive functions in early life. In rats, a model of sensorimotor restriction (SMR) from postnatal day 1 (P1) to P28 has shown that low and atypical sensorimotor activities induced the perturbation of motor behavior due to muscle weakness and the functional disorganization of the primary somatosensory and motor cortices. In the present study, our objective was to understand how SMR affects the muscle-brain dialogue. We focused on irisin, a myokine secreted by skeletal muscles in response to exercise...

Most lower limb rehabilitation robots are limited to specific training postures to adapt to stroke patients in multiple stages of recovery. In addition, there is a lack of attention to the switching functions of the training side, including left, right, and bilateral, which enables patients with hemiplegia to rehabilitate with a single device. This article presents an exoskeleton robot named the multistage hemiplegic lower-limb rehabilitation robot, which has been designed to do rehabilitation in multiple training postures and training sides...

The global aging population faces significant health challenges, including an increasing vulnerability to disability due to natural aging processes. Wearable lower limb exoskeletons (LLEs) have emerged as a promising solution to enhance physical function in older individuals. This systematic review synthesizes the use of LLEs in alignment with the WHO's healthy aging vision, examining their impact on intrinsic capacities and functional abilities. We conducted a comprehensive literature search in six databases, yielding 36 relevant articles covering older adults (65+) with various health conditions, including sarcopenia, stroke, Parkinson's Disease, osteoarthritis, and more...

Flexibility in performing various movements like standing, walking, and turning is crucial for navigating dynamic environments in daily life. Individuals with essential tremor often experience movement difficulties that can affect these postural transitions, limiting mobility and independence. Yet, little research has examined the performance of postural transitions in people with essential tremor. Therefore, we assessed postural transition performance using two versions of the timed up and go test: the standard version and a more complex water-carry version...

The design and control of artificial hands remains a challenge in engineering. Popular prostheses are bio-mechanically simple with restricted manipulation capabilities, as advanced devices are pricy or abandoned due to their difficult communication with the hand. For social robots, the interpretation of human intention is key for their integration in daily life. This can be achieved with machine learning (ML) algorithms, which are barely used for grasping posture recognition. This work proposes an ML approach to recognize nine hand postures, representing 90% of the activities of daily living in real time using an sEMG human-robot interface (HRI)...