Data From: A new perspective on transient characteristics of quiet stance postural control

Postural control provides insight into health concerns such as fall risk
but remains relatively untapped as a vital sign of health. One
understudied aspect of postural control involves transient responses
within center of pressure (CoP) data to events such as vision occlusion.
Such responses are masked by common whole-trial analyses. We hypothesized
that the transient behavior of postural control would yield unique and
clinically-relevant information for quiet stance compared to traditionally
calculated whole-trial CoP estimates. Three experiments were conducted to
test different aspects of this central hypothesis. To test whether
transient, epoch-based characteristics of CoP estimates provide different
information than traditional whole-trial estimates, we investigated
correlations between these estimates for a population of young adults
performing three 60-second trials of quiet stance with eyes closed. Next,
to test if transient behavior is a result of sensory reweighting after eye
closure, we compared transient characteristics between eyes closed and
eyes open conditions. Finally, to test if there was an effect of age on
transient behavior, we compared transient characteristics during eyes
closed stance between populations of young and older adults. Negligible
correlations were found between transient characteristics and whole-trial
estimates (p>0.08), demonstrating limited overlap in information
between them. Additionally, transient behavior was exaggerated during eyes
closed stance relative to eyes open (p<0.044). Lastly, we found
that transient characteristics were able to distinguish between younger
and older adults, supporting their clinical relevance (p<0.029). An
epoch-based approach captured unique and potentially clinically-relevant
postural control information compared to whole-trial estimates. While
longer trials may improve the reliability of whole-trial estimates,
including a complementary assessment of the initial transient
characteristics may provide a more comprehensive characterization of
postural control.