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Balance and step responses with an impaired ankle torque

Hirtum, M.A. van (2012) Balance and step responses with an impaired ankle torque.

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Abstract:Previous studies have reported an asymmetry in balance contribution for unilateral diseased patients, like Parkinson Disease or stroke patients. The aim of this study is to examine the underlying effects on balance and step responses when having such an impaired ankle torque. This study uses healthy subjects and mimics the impaired torque with the use of wooden blocks, one with a foot-size length and one half the foot-size length. The same subjects were tested in the normal situation for a comparison. Prior to the main experiment were Base of Support (BoS) trials where the subjects maximal feasible CoP was examined. The BoS for the small block was considerably smaller than on the foot-size block. The BoS of the foot-size block was about the same length as the without-block feet BoS. The main experiment used transient platform perturbation to disturb subjects balance. These trials showed that the CoP was confined by the BoS. A novel finding was that the CoP of the impaired ankle does not reach up to the BoS, even though the CoM exceeds it. These findings indicate that the impaired ankle does not contribute to its maximum capacity, but scales to the healthy ankle torque.
Item Type:Essay (Bachelor)
Faculty:EEMCS: Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science
Subject:53 electrotechnology
Programme:Electrical Engineering BSc (56953)
Link to this item:https://purl.utwente.nl/essays/62098
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