• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 2004.10a
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• pp.1160-1165
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• 2004

The purpose of this study was to calculate three dimensional angular displacements, moments and joint reaction forces of the ankle joint during the waist pulling, and to assess the ankle joint reaction forces according to different perturbation modes and different levels of perturbation magnitude. Ankle joint model was assumed 3-D ball and socket joint which is capable of three rotational movements. We used 6 cameras, force plate and waist pulling system. Two different waist pulling systems were adopted for forward sway with three magnitudes each. From motion data and ground reaction forces, we could calculate 3-D angular displacements, moments and joint reaction forces during the recovery of postural balance control. From the experiment using falling mass perturbation, joint moments were larger than those from the experiment using air cylinder pulling system with milder perturbation. However, JRF were similar nevertheless the difference in joint moment. From this finding, we could conjecture that the human body employs different strategies to protect joints by decreasing joint reaction forces, like using the joint movement of flexion or extension or compensating joint reaction force with surrounding soft tissues. Therefore, biomechanical analysis of human ankle joint presented in this study is considered useful for understanding balance control and ankle injury mechanism.