The Deviation of the Body's Sway Center with Galvanic Stimulation

Abstract

We investigated galvanic body sway of ten healthy adults and eight patients by using the averaging program for measuring T1 and T2, which were latencies at the onset and at the cutoff of galvanic stimulation, respectively, and the plotting program, which adopted 1.73 sec as T1 and 0.39 sec as T2, for calculating the coordinates of the body's sway center. We estimated galvanic body sway with the difference between the coordinate of the body's sway center during stimulation and that during no stimulation. The deviation in lateral direction on the healthy subjects ranged from 0.7 or 0.9 to 2.1 cm at right- or left-side stimulation. One of the patients with peripheral disorders revealed differences between right- and left-side stimulation. The other patients did not reveal any differences. In antero-posterior direction six of the healthy subjects deviated backward at right-side stimulation and nine subjects deviated backward at left-side stimulation. The patients with peripheral disorders did not reveal any differences. The other patients revealed some differences. Waves computed by the averaging program do not always show the quantity of galvanic body sway. The deviation of the body's sway center shows the quantity of body sway consistently. The body's sway center is considered to be a suitable parameter in the galvanic body sway test for statistical analysis.