Difference in the recruitment of intrinsic foot muscles in the elderly under static and dynamic postural conditions

PeerJ

article

Zhangqi Lai¹  Ruiyan Wang²  Bangguo Zhou³  Jing Chen¹  Lin Wang⁴ 

[1] The Third School of Clinical Medicine ,(School of Rehabilitation Medicine), Zhejiang Chinese Medical University;School of Rehabilitation Science, Shanghai University of Traditional Chinese Medicine;Department of Medical Ultrasound, Shanghai Tenth People’s Hospital;Key Laboratory of Exercise and Health Sciences ,(Shanghai University of Sport), Ministry of Education

关键词: Postural stability;    Aging;    Intrinsic foot muscle;    Foot core system;   

DOI  :  10.7717/peerj.15719

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: Inra

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundThe effect of foot, especially intrinsic muscles, on postural control and its related mechanisms remain unclear due to the complex structure. Therefore, this study aims to investigate the activation of intrinsic foot muscles in the elderly under static and dynamic postural tasks.MethodsTwenty-one elderly participants were included to perform different postural tests (sensory organization test (SOT), motor control test (MCT), limit of stability test (LOS), and unilateral stance test) by a NeuroCom Balance Manager System. The participants were instructed to maintain postural stability under conditions with combined different sensory inputs (vision, vestibular, and proprioception) in SOT as well as conditions with translation disturbance in MCT, and to perform an active weight-shifting tasks in LOS. During these tasks, muscle activation were simultaneously acquired from intrinsic foot muscles (abductor halluces (AbH) and flexor digitorum brevis (FDB)) and ankle muscles (anterior tibialis, medial head of gastrocnemius, lateral head of gastrocnemius, and peroneus longus). The root-mean-square amplitude of these muscles in postural tasks was calculated and normalized with the EMG activity in unilateral stance task.ResultsThe activation of intrinsic foot muscles significantly differed among different SOT tasks (p < 0.001). Post-hoc tests showed that compared with that under normal condition 1 without sensory interference, EMGs increased significantly under sensory disturbance (conditions 2–6). By contrast, compared with that under the single-sensory disturbed conditions (conditions 2–4; 2 for disturbed vision, 3 for disturbed vestibular sensation, 4 for disturbed proprioception), activation was significantly greater under the dual-sensory disturbed postural tasks (conditions 5 and 6; 5 for disturbed vision and proprioception, 6 for disturbed vestibular sensation and proprioception). In MCT, EMGs of foot muscles increased significantly under different translation speeds (p < 0.001). In LOS, moderate and significant correlations were found between muscle activations and postural stability parameters (AbH, r = 0. 355–0.636, p < 0.05; FDB, r = 0.336–0.622, p < 0.05).ConclusionIntrinsic foot muscles play a complementary role to regulate postural stability when disturbances occur. In addition, the recruitment magnitude of intrinsic foot muscles is positively correlated with the limit of stability, indicating their contribution to increasing the limits of stability in the elderly.

【 授权许可】

CC BY