Effects of Compression Garments on Balance Control in Young Healthy Active Subjects: A Hierarchical Cluster Analysis.

Kévin Baige,Noëlle Bru,Thierry Paillard,Frédéric Noé

doi:10.3389/fnhum.2020.582514

Abstract

There is controversy about the influence of compression garments on balance control. A positive influence was reported in elderly and injured individuals, whereas no beneficial effects were observed in young healthy active subjects, which is likely due to the large inter-individual differences in these subjects. Hence, this study investigated the acute effects of compression garments on balance control in young healthy active subjects by addressing the issue of heterogeneity of individuals’ responses to the wearing of compression garments. Thirteen young, healthy, active subjects were recruited. They stood on a force plate which recorded the center of foot pressure displacements in a monopedal stance with the eyes closed and on a wobble board with the eyes open, while wearing compression garments or not. Statistics were first calculated with the data from the whole sample. A hierarchical cluster analysis was also performed in order to categorize the participants’ behaviors into subgroups with similar characteristics. The whole group analysis showed that there were no significant effects attributed to compression garments. The clustering analysis identified distinct and homogeneous subgroups of participants. Only participants who swayed the more at baseline benefited from the wearing of compression garments to improve their balance control. These participants might have either a gravity-dependent preferred sensorimotor strategy with an exploratory postural behavior or poorer balance/proprioceptive abilities. Since poor balance control is a predictor of sports injury risk, wearing compression garments during sports practice could be viewed as a potential prevention strategy for individuals at risk.

Highlights

The somatosensory system highly contributes to balance control
These beneficial effects of compression garments on balance control would be most pronounced among elderly and injured subjects (Kuster et al, 1999; You et al, 2004; Palm et al, 2012; Woo et al, 2018) and high-level athletes (Michael et al, 2014). These results suggest that only subjects with either sensory deficits, such as elderly and injured subjects, or exceptional sensory acuity and/or sensory reweighting mechanisms, such as high-level athletes (Paillard, 2017, 2019), would be able to benefit from compression garments to improve balance control
Only individuals who exhibited the highest values of linear center of pressure parameters in the REF condition benefited from the wearing of compression garments to improve their balance control

Summary

Introduction

The somatosensory system highly contributes to balance control. It provides information about body movements that lead to small-sized tissue deformation and activation of cutaneous, muscle, and articular mechanoreceptors (Krishnamoorthy et al, 2002). Connective tissue is of particular importance since it has a uniting function by binding every cell to its neighbors in order to form a whole medium that enables the transmission and the distribution of mechanical forces within the tensegrity assemblage (Palatinus et al, 2014; Turvey and Fonseca, 2014). Such a unification gives emphasis of relations between individual cells, which facilitate the pickup of information about body motion that emerges from interactions between perception, action, information, and task goal (Riley et al, 1999). Compression garments can enhance the perception of somatosensory information and influence balance control positively by reducing body sway during quiet standing (Kuster et al, 1999; Michael et al, 2014; Woo et al, 2017, 2018)

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Conclusion