A basic study of balance training by the use of auditory feedback system

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The purpose of this study was to assess the relationships between body sway, toe pressure, tactile sensation, and auditory stimulus in healthy adults of different ages. The instrument used for evaluation of standing balance was a stabilometer. The toe pressure was measured using the F-scan Tactile Sensor System. The results showed that there were significant differences between the young and elderly groups in the tactile sense of the great toe.The auditory stimulus (a white-noise sound) produced by the new feedback system should influenced more the lateral body sway than the anterior-posterior body sway. The analysis of toe pressure indicated that all subjects used more their left feet than their right feet to maintain balance. Moreover, the elderly group have the tendency that they mainly stabilized by their right heels. However, the young group mainly stabilized by their right toes. The results suggest that the elderly may need more the appropriate stimuli of tactile and auditory sense as a feedback system than the young may. The results also indicate that the reduced tactile sense, deprivation of visual information, altered auditory input, and toe pressure weakness are all important factors associated with postural stability.