Postural Control Overview

Postural Control

• Postural control involves maintaining body stability.
• The interplay of center of mass (COM) and base of support (BOS) is crucial.
• Static balance is the ability to maintain stability with the COM over the BOS when the body is at rest.
• Postural sway is the constant displacement and correction of the COM position within the BOS. A human's tall structure on a small base causes trunk sway around the ankle joint.
• Postural stability involves maintaining the body's position within specific boundaries.
• Postural sway is measured by the distance traveled by the Centre of Pressure (COP) using a force plate. Increased COP excursion may signal postural control problems.
• Romberg's test is an assessment tool for postural control.
• Dynamic balance is maintaining stability with the COM over the BOS when the body parts are moving.
• Anticipatory postural adjustments occur before movement, such as during weightlifting, involving CNS feed-forward to postural muscles. Experience plays a role.
• Adaptive postural control involves adjusting balance skills for varying tasks and environmental conditions.

Posture Functions

• Maintaining alignment of body segments.
• Anticipating changes to allow voluntary movement.
• Reacting to unexpected disturbances.

Other Factors

• Equilibrium reactions: Bodily responses to maintain balance.
• Righting reactions: Reactions to reorient the body or head with gravity.
• Protective extension: Reflexes to protect the body from falling.
• Perturbations: Changes in forces acting on the body (mechanical) or sensory inputs (e.g., light, sound).
• Sensory Input: Vital for balance; includes vision.
• Vision: A crucial sensory input for balance.
• Muscle Spindles: Provide information on muscle length and velocity changes, involving afferent and efferent neural pathways (alpha and gamma Motor Neurons).
• Pressure: Detected by sensory neurons to provide information for balance.
• Vestibular Inputs: Sensory information from the inner ear, specifically semicircular canals, utricle, and saccule, about head and body position (related to equilibrium and righting).

This quiz explores the fundamentals of postural control, including the dynamics of center of mass and base of support. You'll learn about static and dynamic balance, postural sway, and assessment tools like Romberg's test. Test your understanding of how the body maintains stability during various movements.