Changes in plantar load distribution in legally blind subjects.

Ketlin Jaquelline Santana Castro,Bianca Callegari,Newton Quintino Feitosa,Ana Francisca Rozin Kleiner,Anselmo Athayde Costa E Silva,Anderson Belgamo,Railson Cruz Salomão,Givago Silva Souza,André Santos Cabral,Leonardo Dutra Henriques,Manabu Sakakibara

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0249467

Ketlin Jaquelline Santana Castro, Bianca Callegari + Show 9 more

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https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0249467

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Abstract

We investigated the impact of visual impairment on balance control. We measured the center of pressure (COP) between the two feet and plantar surface pressures on each foot in 18 normal-sighted participants and compared their data with measures from 18 legally blind participants, either acquired or congenital. Pressures were measured in open- and closed-eye conditions using a baropodometric resistive plate. In the eyes-open condition, there were no differences between the sighted and legally blind groups in COP displacement. However, participants with visual loss had significantly increased pressures in two metatarsal regions (M1 and M2 zones) of the plantar surface in both viewing conditions (p < 0.05). The differences in pressure measures between the normally sighted and legally blind groups could be attributed mainly to the subgroup of subjects with acquired impairment. Our findings suggest that subjects with visual impairment present increased metatarsal pressures (i.e. forefoot), not yet associated to anterior displacement of COP or impaired balance control.

Highlights

Dynamic maintenance of balance while standing in humans relies on information from visual, vestibular, and proprioceptive inputs required by the brain to appropriately generate the complex array of motor commands needed to achieve equilibrium in a standing position [1,2,3,4]
We observed no significant difference of the stabilometric variables (COPdistance, COParea) across the groups, indicating the action of compensatory mechanisms in the balance control of the participants with visual impairment [27, 37]
We observed that most of the foot zones of the legally blind participants had no significant pressure differences compared to controls, except for the higher maximum pressures in the first and second metatarsal heads (M1 and M2 zones) in patients in the closed-eye condition

Summary

Introduction

Dynamic maintenance of balance while standing in humans relies on information from visual, vestibular, and proprioceptive inputs required by the brain to appropriately generate the complex array of motor commands needed to achieve equilibrium in a standing position [1,2,3,4]. Sensory impairment can impede adaptive postural control mechanisms and lead to equilibrium loss (i.e., visual [5,6,7]; vestibular [8, 9]; proprioceptive [10, 11]; vestibular and proprioceptive [12]). The contribution of the visual inputs to the balance control is a hot topic and have been previously investigated. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript

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