• Physical Therapy Korea
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.41-49
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• 2015

This study aimed to evaluate the surface area and velocity of center of pressure (COP) during one leg standing by stimulating the sensory system in normal adults. Thirty subjects were enrolled in this study. Subjects were asked to stand on one leg during testing conditions. Testing conditions included 6 different sensory stimulations as follows: eyes opened, eyes closed, eyes opened with vibrator, eyes opened with head-mounted display (HMD), eyes opened with vibrator and HMD, and eyes closed with vibrator. During each testing condition, the surface area and velocity of center of pressure were measured. There were significant differences in the mean surface area and the mean velocity of COP between the "eyes opened" condition and the other five testing conditions (p<.05). However, in the comparison between the "eyes closed" and "eyes opened with HMD" conditions, there were no significant differences in the tested parameters. This study shows that closing eyes or keeping eyes opened while using HMD to experience virtual reality has the same effect on one leg standing balance. This finding should be considered in the evaluation or intervention of balance, especially one leg standing balance and balance while standing with a small base of support.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Physical Medicine
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• v.6 no.2
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• pp.109-118
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• 2011

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of core stabilization exercise on foot pressure in the hemiplegic patients. Methods: A total of 28 subjects(n=28) who were diagnosed with hemiplegic caused by a stroke were randomly divided into bridge exercise(BX, n=14) and crunch exercise(CX, n=13) groups and each group executed the exercises 20 minutes a day, 4 times per week over an 8 week period. Foot pressure was measured on the fore, mid, and hind foot for peak pressure, and distance of center of pressure(COP). Results: The peak pressure on the mid foot for BX and CX were significantly different according to the exercise period(p<.05). Peak pressure on the hind foot of BX was significantly different according to exercise period(p<.05), however there was not in CX. The effects of each exercises period were significantly different according to pre-after 8weeks(p<.05). According to exercise period(p<.05), COP distances of BX and CX were significantly different. Conclusion: The results show that both BX and CX verified an improvement in gait ability. Especially, since we confirmed BX was attributed more to gait ability than CX. This is considered to be effective on those hemiplegic patients who need core-stabilization and gait stability.

• Journal of the HCI Society of Korea
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.13-19
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• 2015

Display technology has recently made enormous progress. In particular, display companies are competing each other to develop flexible display. Curved display, as a precursor of flexible display, are now used for smart phones and TVs. Curved monitors have been just introduced in the market, and are used for office work or entertainment. The aim of the current study was to investigate whether the curvature of a 42" multi-monitor affects postural control when it is used for entertainment purpose. The current study used two curvature levels (flat and 600mm). Ten college students [mean(SD) age = 20.9 (1.5)] with at least 20/25 visual acuity, and without color blindness and musculoskeletal disorders participated in this study. In a typical VDT environment, each participant played a car racing video game using a steering wheel and pedals for 30 minutes at each curvature level. During the video game, a pressure mat on the seat pan measured the participant's COP (Center of Pressure), and from which four measures (Mean Velocity, Median Power Frequency, Root-Mean-Square Distance, and 95% Confidence Ellipse Area) were derived. A larger AP (Anterior-Posterior) RMS distance was observed in the flat condition, indicating more forward-backward upper body movements. It can be partly due to more variability in visual distance across display, and hence longer ocular accommodation time in the case of the flat display. In addition, a different level of presence or attention between two curvature conditions can lead to such a difference. Any potential effect of such a behavioral change by display curvature on musculoskeletal disorders should be further investigated.

• Physical Therapy Korea
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.20-30
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• 2010

This study examined whether any changes by mental task types on postural control in chronic stroke persons. Sixteen chronic stroke persons (mean age=53.75 yr) and sixteen age-and gender-matched healthy controls (mean age=54.44 yr) took part in this study. Participants randomly performed three different tasks on the stable and unstable surfaces. The no mental task was to stand while holding a 100 g weight in each hand, the arithmetic task (mental task) was to perform a silent 1-backwards counting while standing and holding a 100 g weight in each hand, and the simple task (mental task) was to stand and hold with both hands a tray (200 g) on which a glass filled with water has been placed. Sway path and sway velocity of the center of pressure (COP) were measured to assess standing postural control by task performance using the force platform. According to the results, in stroke group, total sway path and total sway velocity of COP was significantly decreased during arithmetic and simple task compared to no mental task on the stable surface (p<.05), and sway path (anteroposterior AP, mediolateral ML) of COP, total and sway velocity (AP, ML, total) of COP was significantly decreased during arithmetic and simple task compared to no mental task on the unstable surface (p<.05). Especially, sway path (AP, total) of COP and sway velocity (AP, ML, total) of COP was significantly decreased under the simple task when compared to the arithmetic task on the unstable surface (p<.05). In healthy control group, sway path (AP, ML, total) of COP and sway velocity (AP, ML, total) of COP was significantly decreased during arithmetic and simple task compared to no mental task on the stable and unstable surface (p<.05), and sway path (AP, total) of COP and sway velocity (AP, ML, total) of COP was significantly decreased under the simple task when compared to the arithmetic task on the unstable surface (p<.05). In conclusion, the findings of this study showed that arithmetic and simple task improved standing postural control for chronic stroke patients and the type of arithmetic and simple tasks were critical factor that reduced standing postural sway in dual-task conditions. Future research should determine whether dual-task conditions, including simple task, would be effective as a training program for standing postural control of stroke patients.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.28 no.5
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• pp.647-656
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• 2007

The purpose of this study was to analyze the effects of vibratory stimulus as somatosensory inputs on the postural control in human standing. To study these effects, the center of pressure(COP) was observed while subjects were standing on a stable and an unstable support with co-stimulated mechanical vibrations to flexor ankle muscles(tibialis anterior tendon, achilles tendon) and two plantar zones on both foot. The COP sway measurement was repeated twice in four conditions: (1) with visual cue and vibration, (2) without visual cue and vibration, (3) with visual cue and without vibration, (4) without visual cue and with vibration. The calculated parameters were the COP sway area and the distance, the median frequency and the spectral energy of COP sway in three intervals $0.1{\sim}0.3,\;0.3{\sim}1,\;1{\sim}3Hz$. The results showed that vibratory stimulus affect postural stability. The reduction rate of the COP sway with vibratory stimulus were higher on the unstable support because the effect of postural stability increases when afferent nervous flow is more activated by vibration on unstable support. If unclear visual or vibratory information is received, one type of information is compared with the other type of sensory information. Then the input balance between visual and vibratory information is corrected to maintain postural stability. These findings are important for the rehabilitation system of postural balance control and the use of vibratory information.

• Journal of the Ergonomics Society of Korea
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• v.24 no.1
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• pp.1-7
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• 2005

This paper investigates the effects of scene movements on cybersickness to develop the guidelines of scene movements in virtual environments. The types of scene movements were made for both scene navigations(through the axes of X: lateral, Y: fore & after, and Z: vertical) and scene rotations(by pitch, roll and yaw). And there were each three levels of speed; 2.7, 4.5 and 6.3 /s(for navigation), and 10, 20 and 30 /s(for rotation) were conducted. Twelve participants were exposed to each scene for 15 minutes, and three tests were performed to measure the degree of sickness. Before and after subjects were exposed to virtual environments, they were requested to describe their sickness symptoms by means of answering the Simulator Sickness Questionnaire(SSQ). And the postural stability tests, in which the Center of Pressure(COP) of subjects were traced and recorded by a 'force platform', were conducted. During the exposure on virtual environments, the subjects were requested to rate the degree of nausea. For both navigation and rotation, the effects of speeds and axes were significant in the SSQ scores and the nausea ratings, while it was not in the COP. The correlation between the SSQ scores and the COP data was not found. Therefore, it was inappropriate to use COP as a measure of cybersickness. The degree of sickness increased, except for the case of the yaw, as the speed increased. The sickness was most severe in the scene navigation through the axis X and in the scene rotation by the yaw.

• The Journal of Korean Physical Therapy
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• v.29 no.3
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• pp.135-141
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• 2017

Purpose: This study was to identify the anticipatory postural adjustment (APA) mechanism which is represented by the onset time of trunk muscles and the displacement of the center of pressure (COP) according to the different base of support (BOS) during upper extremity movement. Methods: Thirty healthy subjects (14 males, 16 females) participated in this study. The movement was performed for 10 trials during each of various BOS (shoulder - width double leg stance, narrow base double leg stance, tandem stance, non-dominant single leg stance) at the 1.2 Hz frequency. Electromyography was used to measure muscle onset time and biorescue was used to measure characteristics of the displacement of COP. Surface bipolar electrodes were applied over the right deltoid anterior, right latissimus dorsi, both rectus abdominis, both internal oblique and both erector spinae. The data were analyzed by repeated one-way ANOVA and Duncan's post hoc test. Results: The study has revealed following. There were significant differences with muscle onset time in each BOS (p<0.01). There were significant differences in characteristics of the COP in each BOS (p<0.01). Conclusion: The study found that the more narrowed the basis requires the more rapid anticipatory postural control in contralateral postural muscle when the upper extremity movement is performed.

• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.13 no.9
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• pp.843-850
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• 2007

This paper proposes a somatosensory stimulation system for the improvement of postural stability using vibration as somatosensory stimulation. This system consists of vibratory stimulation and postural response measurement. To evaluate this system, the center of pressure(COP) was closely observed in turn with simultaneous or separate mechanical vibratory stimulations to flexor ankle muscles (tibialis anterior, triceps surae) and two plantar zones on both feet while standing on a stable and an unstable support. The simultaneous vibratory stimulations cleared influenced postural stability and the effects of vibrations were higher with the unstable support. In separate vibratory stimulations, the extent of the COP sway reduced when the direction of the vibratory stimulations and that of the inclination of body coincided for flexor ankle muscle stimulations. In the contrary, the extent of the COP sway increased when the direction of the stimulations and that of body inclination coincided for plantar zone stimulations. These results can be useful for the development of rehabilitation systems that utilizes somatosensory inputs for postural balance.

• Proceedings of the KOSOMBE Conference
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• v.1997 no.11
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• pp.39-43
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• 1997

Posturography stands or quantitative assessment of body postural stability analysis. The present study developed a balance plate system to monitor patient's center of pressure (COP) movement and to analyze its stability. An equilateral triangular shaped plate was made of duralumin and forces were measured on the three vertices of the plate using industrial load cells. Specially designed electronic circuit picked up force signals ed into data acquisition system to calculate the cartesian coordinates of COP. COP calculation error was less than 2%. The force signals enabled to compute stability measures, which consisted of a variety of clinical parameters related to postural stability. Clinical experiments were carefully designed and performed on 40 normal subjects. The results were that 1) postural stability decreased with age and 2) the best parameters were those of posture deviation measures. A customized PC-based software package was developed to apply the present technique with a great convenience to monitoring and analyzing postural stability in an accurate and quantitative way.

• Biomedical Science Letters
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• v.25 no.2
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• pp.149-158
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• 2019

The objective of this study was to evaluate the effects of thoracic mobilization (TM) on the angle of thoracic kyphosis, and static and dynamic balances by application period. The subjects of this study were 18 adult males and females (${\geq}20years\; old$) who had the angle of thoracic kyphosis equal to or higher than $40^{\circ}$. A pre-test was conducted for all subjects and TM was carried out. Data were collected before the intervention, 3 weeks after the intervention, and 6 weeks after the intervention. It was measured three times per measurement and mean values were used for the analysis. The results of this study showed that the angle of thoracic kyphosis significantly (P<.05) decreased after applying TM. However, the migration area ($mm^2$) of the center of pressure (COP) in the static balance did not vary significantly. In the case of the dynamic balance, when eyes were open, the migration area ($mm^2$) of the COP significantly (P<.05) decreased after 3 weeks. When eyes were open, the migration area ($mm^2$) of the COP significantly (P<.05) decreased after 3 weeks and 6 weeks. Therefore, an intervention for improving the human body alignment and balance should be applied for a long-term, rather than a short-term, in order to be effective.