Relations between postural sway and cognitive workload during various gaze tasks in healthy young and old people. 2021

Miyoung Roh, and Euisu Shin, and Seungmin Lee
Frontier Research Institute of Convergence Sports Science, Yonsei University, Seoul, Korea.

The purpose of this study was to determine whether postural control would differ under various gaze tasks while standing in a wide or narrow stance between healthy young and old people, and also investigate whether postural sway and cognitive workload are affected by dual-task balance. Ten young and 10 healthy old people participated in this study. Each participant stood upright under four gaze conditions (fixation, saccade, pursuit, vestibular-ocular reflex) and two stance conditions (wide and narrow stance) in a total of 16 trials. Postural sway was measured by the mean sway amplitude of the center of pressure in the medial-lateral and anteriorposterior directions. Cognitive workload was measured through pupil response as an index of cognitive activity (ICA) by using Eye tracking system and Eyeworks. The results showed that postural sway significantly reduced when performing saccadic eye movement in both groups but greater postural sway was evoked in vestibular-ocular reflex condition. In addition, although old people had a significant increase in ICA compared to the young, there were no significant differences among all the gaze conditions in old people. These results confirmed that saccadic eye movements are the most beneficial for reducing postural sway regardless of aging and also provide some insight that pupil response represents an indicator of cognitive workload during dual-task balance context. These findings suggest that eye movement exercises may be considered as an effective intervention to improve postural control so a fall prevention program applying eye movement should be extended to individuals who are at risk of falling.

UI MeSH Term Description Entries

Related Publications

Miyoung Roh, and Euisu Shin, and Seungmin Lee
September 2019, Neuroscience,
Miyoung Roh, and Euisu Shin, and Seungmin Lee
January 2007, Gerontology,
Miyoung Roh, and Euisu Shin, and Seungmin Lee
January 2016, Brazilian journal of otorhinolaryngology,
Miyoung Roh, and Euisu Shin, and Seungmin Lee
April 2016, Human movement science,
Miyoung Roh, and Euisu Shin, and Seungmin Lee
January 2005, Pediatric physical therapy : the official publication of the Section on Pediatrics of the American Physical Therapy Association,
Miyoung Roh, and Euisu Shin, and Seungmin Lee
May 2008, Clinical neurophysiology : official journal of the International Federation of Clinical Neurophysiology,
Miyoung Roh, and Euisu Shin, and Seungmin Lee
March 2015, Physiological reports,
Miyoung Roh, and Euisu Shin, and Seungmin Lee
May 2014, Neuroscience letters,
Miyoung Roh, and Euisu Shin, and Seungmin Lee
May 2020, Haemophilia : the official journal of the World Federation of Hemophilia,
Miyoung Roh, and Euisu Shin, and Seungmin Lee
June 2009, Gait & posture,
Copied contents to your clipboard!