Abstract
BackgroundIt is known that adolescent idiopathic scoliosis (AIS) is often accompanied by balance deficits. This reciprocal relationship must be taken into account when prescribing new therapeutic modalities because these may differently affect postural control, interacting with therapy and influencing its results.ObjectiveThe purpose was to compare postural control in girls with AIS while wearing the Chêneau brace (BRA) or performing active self-correction (ASC) with their postural control in a quiet comfortable stance.MethodsNine subjects were evaluated on a force plate in three series of two 20-s quiet standing trials with eyes open or closed; three blocks were randomly arranged: normal quiet stance (QST), quiet stance with BRA, and quiet stance with ASC. On the basis of centre-of-pressure (COP) recordings, the spatial and temporal COP parameters were computed.Results and DiscussionPerforming ASC was associated with a significant backward excursion of the COP mean position with eyes open and closed (ES = 0.56 and 0.65, respectively; p < 0.05). This excursion was accompanied by an increase in the COP fractal dimension (ES = 1.05 and 0.98; p < 0.05) and frequency (ES = 0.78; p = 0.10 and ES = 1.14; p < 0.05) in the mediolateral (ML) plane. Finally, both therapeutic modalities decreased COP sample entropy with eyes closed in the anteroposterior (AP) plane. Wearing BRA resulted in ES = 1.45 (p < 0.05) while performing ASC in ES = 0.76 (p = 0.13).ConclusionThe observed changes in the fractal dimension (complexity) and frequency caused by ASC account for better adaptability of patients to environmental demands and for their adequate resources of available postural strategies in the ML plane. These changes in sway structure were accompanied by a significant (around 25 mm) backward excursion of the mean COP position. However, this improvement was achieved at the cost of lower automaticity, i.e. higher attentional involvement in postural control in the AP plane. Wearing BRA may have an undesirable effect on some aspects of body balance.
Highlights
Adolescent idiopathic scoliosis (AIS) is one of the common spinal deformities observed during adolescence, affecting 2–4% of individuals aged 10–16 years (Hawasli, Hullar & Dorward, 2015)
There was a vision × posture interaction (F [2,16] = 3.89; p = 0.042) for range only, which arose because brace differently affected this parameter: the range increased during eyes closed (p = 0.003) and remained unchanged during eyes open
This means that changes in postural control between active self-correction (ASC) and BRA observed in this study cannot be explained by differential effects of the investigated postures on the quality of sensory inputs
Summary
Adolescent idiopathic scoliosis (AIS) is one of the common spinal deformities observed during adolescence, affecting 2–4% of individuals aged 10–16 years (Hawasli, Hullar & Dorward, 2015). Performing ASC was associated with a significant backward excursion of the COP mean position with eyes open and closed (ES = 0.56 and 0.65, respectively; p < 0.05) This excursion was accompanied by an increase in the COP fractal dimension (ES = 1.05 and 0.98; p < 0.05) and frequency (ES = 0.78; p = 0.10 and ES = 1.14; p < 0.05) in the mediolateral (ML) plane. The observed changes in the fractal dimension (complexity) and frequency caused by ASC account for better adaptability of patients to environmental demands and for their adequate resources of available postural strategies in the ML plane These changes in sway structure were accompanied by a significant (around 25 mm) backward excursion of the mean COP position. Wearing BRA may have an undesirable effect on some aspects of body balance
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