Delayed Center of Mass Feedback in Elderly Humans Leads to Greater Muscle Co-Contraction and Altered Balance Strategy Under Perturbed Balance: A Predictive Musculoskeletal Simulation Study

Details

• Journal Article:
  PLoS One
• Personal Author:
  Jones, Rachel M. ; Ratnakumar, Neethan ; Akbas, Kubra ; Zhou, Xianlian
• Description:
  Falls are one of the leading causes of non-disease death and injury in the elderly, often due to delayed sensory neural feedback essential for balance. This delay, challenging to measure or manipulate in human studies, necessitates exploration through neuromusculoskeletal modeling to reveal its intricate effects on balance. In this study, we developed a novel three-way muscle feedback control approach, including muscle length feedback, muscle force feedback, and enter of mass feedback, for balancing and investigated specifically the effects of center of mass feedback delay on elderly people's balance strategies. We conducted simulations of cyclic perturbed balance at different magnitudes ranging from 0 to 80 mm and with three center of mass feedback delays (100, 150 & 200 ms). The results reveal two key points: 1) Longer center of mass feedback delays resulted in increased muscle activations and co-contraction, 2) Prolonged center of mass feedback delays led to noticeable shifts in balance strategies during perturbed standing. Under low-amplitude perturbations, the ankle strategy was predominantly used, while higher amplitude disturbances saw more frequent employment of hip and knee strategies. Additionally, prolonged center of mass delays altered balance strategies across different phases of perturbation, with a noticeable increase in overall ankle strategy usage. These findings underline the adverse effects of prolonged feedback delays on an individual's stability, necessitating greater muscle co-contraction and balance strategy adjustment to maintain balance under perturbation. Our findings advocate for the development of training programs tailored to enhance balance reactions and mitigate muscle feedback delays within clinical or rehabilitation settings for fall prevention in elderly people.
• Subjects:
  Accidental Falls Biomechanical Phenomena Musculoskeletal System Occupational Health Safety
• Keywords:
  Falls; Aging; Motion studies; Biomechanics; Biomechanical modeling; Biomedical engineering; Muscle function
• Source:
  PLoS One 2024 May; 19(5):e0296548
• ISSN:
  1932-6203
• Document Type:
  Text
• Funding:
  Contract
• Genre:
  Journal Article
• Place as Subject:
  New Jersey ; OSHA Region 2
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America
• Pages in Document:
  26 pdf pages
• Volume:
  19
• Issue:
  5
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:20071225
• Contact Point Address:
  Xianlian Zhou, Department of Biomedical Engineering, New Jersey Institute of Technology, Newark, NJ, United States of America
• Email:
  alexzhou@njit.edu
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  2024
• Performing Organization:
  New Jersey Institute of Technology
• Peer Reviewed:
  True
• Start Date:
  20200901
• End Date:
  20240630
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:c7a48ac9ac035d473b9b999465efcf4e8d7a26dc3364fef091a387307b31d27f066d509bedf5a612825c0c477fb62ef86ed911ea0343180696fcfd492036e8f7
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/258704/cdc_258704_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 5.13 MB ]