Conscious Postural Control During Standing on Compliant Surface by Older Adults

This study examined the real-time objective measurement of conscious postural control (“reinvestment”) in older adults when standing on a compliant surface using electroencephalogram (EEG) coherence. Twenty-nine older adults participated in the study and their Alpha2 T3-Fz and Alpha2 T4-Fz EEG coherence during standing at three different positions on foam including wide-base standing on foam (WBF), narrow-base standing on foam (NBF) and tandem standing on foam (TAF) were measured. Participants were also required to respond to a Visual Analog Scale (VAS) to determine their perceived task difficulty after each standing position. Three 2 × 3 (Groups[low reinvestor, high reinvestor] × Standing positions[WBF, NBF, TAF]) analysis of variance (ANOVA) with repeated measures were conducted to determine differences between high and low reinvestors in three standing positions (WBF, NBF, TAF) at the primary outcome measures. The main effects of standing positions at VAS and Alpah2 T3-Fz EEG coherence were discovered but without interaction. The results suggested that when standing task difficulty increased, older adults generally elevated their real-time conscious postural control together with perceived task difficulty. It implicates that Alpha2 T3-Fz EEG coherence can be considered as a real-time objective conscious postural control measurement during balance assessment and rehabilitation if further large-scale studies could find its discriminative power between high and low reinvestors.