Article

Instrumented postural control analysis plays an important role in evaluating the
effects of injury on dynamic stability during balance tasks, and is often
conveyed with measures based on the displacement of the center-of-pressure (COP)
assessed with a force platform. However, the desired outcome of the task is
frequently characterized by a loss of dynamic stability, secondary to injury.
Typically, these failed trials are discarded during research investigations, with
the potential loss of informative data pertaining to task success. The novelty of
the present study is that COP characteristics of failed trials in injured
participants are compared to successful trial data in another injured group, and
a control group of participants, using the fractal dimension (FD) method. Three
groups of participants attempted a task of eyes closed single limb stance (SLS):
twenty-nine participants with acute ankle sprain successfully completed the task
on their non-injured limb (successful injury group); twenty eight participants
with acute ankle sprain failed their attempt on their injured limb (failed injury
group); sixteen participants with no current injury successfully completed the
task on their non-dominant limb (successful non-injured group). Between trial
analyses of these groups revealed significant differences in COP trajectory FD
(successful injury group: 1.58+/-0.06; failed injury group: 1.54+/-0.07;
successful non-injured group: 1.64+/-0.06) with a large effect size (0.27). These
findings demonstrate that successful eyes-closed SLS is characterized by a larger
FD of the COP path when compared to failed trials, and that injury causes a
decrease in COP path FD.
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Langue : ANGLAIS