Wobble Board Case Study

Title:
Postural control in standing on a wobble board

Background:
Standing on a small or unstable base of support, a person must correct his posture to maintain the position of the body’s center of mass to fall within the area of support. Postural control is facilitated through several movement strategies such as ankle strategy, knee strategy, hip strategy, or stepping strategy when a person loses his balance. In addition to the counter-rotation mechanism, a mechanism to prevent a loss of balance, can be employed which extends the area in which balance can be regained beyond the base of support. This mechanism is achieved by movements of free segments around the center of mass, i.e., arms, upper trunk and/or the free leg commonly seen when
The second objective is to compare the amount of movement strategies and muscle activities between standing on a firm surface and on a wobble board with double limbs support. The last objective is to compare amount of movement strategies and muscle activities between standing on a wobble board with dominant and non-dominant limbs for determining the static dominant limb
All subjects can practice for familiarization with the wobble board for 1 minute. Then, thirty-nine reflective markers for the full body model will be placed over the participants’ anatomical landmark, and surface EMG electrodes will be attached over the lower leg and foot muscles. For experimental setup, the markers are positioned on the board in the front, back, left and right sides for determining the wobble board displacement (degree) in sagittal and frontal plane (Silva et al.,