Comparison of sensitivity among dynamic balance measures during walking with different tasks

Abstract

Although various measures have been proposed to evaluate dynamic balance during walking, it is currently unclear which measures are most sensitive to dynamic balance. We aimed to investigate which dynamic balance measure is most sensitive to detecting differences in dynamic balance during walking across various gait parameters, including short- and long-term Lyapunov exponents ( λ s and λ l ), margin of stability (MOS), distance between the desired and measured centre of pressure (dCOP–mCOP) and whole-body angular momentum (WBAM). A total of 10 healthy young adults were asked to walk on a treadmill under three different conditions (normal walking, dual-task walking with a Stroop task as an unstable walking condition, and arm-restricted walking with arms restricted in front of the chest as another unstable walking condition) that were expected to have different dynamic balance properties. Overall, we found that λ s of the centre of mass velocity, λ s of the trunk velocity, λ s of the hip joint angle, and the magnitude of the mediolateral dCOP–mCOP at heel contact can identify differences between tasks with a high sensitivity. Our findings provide new insights into the selection of sensitive dynamic balance measures during human walking.