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HOME > Res Vestib Sci > Volume 11; 2012 > Article
Gait Analysis and Postural Test Using Acceleration Sensor

DOI: https://doi.org/
Department of Otolaryngology-HNS, Gachon University of Medicine and Science, Graduate School of Medicine, Incheon, Korea
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Proper posture or balance during locomotion relies on CNS control system including vision, proprioception, vestibular function, and cerebellunm. Vestibulo-spinal reflex (VSR) and vestibulo-ocular reflex (VOR) play the most important role to maintain gaze at fixed target with stabilized balance while standing in certain posture or moving, and vestibular function test clinically evaluates these reflex arcs. However, since all dizziness cannot be diagnosed with nystagmography and posture test, new diagnostic method that allows classifying dizziness due to subjective symptoms and senile change is urgently required. Moreover, such new method gives important clues to decide treatment strategy, and it can be used as an evaluation tool for treatment. Therefore, better understanding of posture-to-locomotion relationship that is directly related to customized rehabilitation is more required than nystagmography or oculomotor test. For posture test, Romberg test has been used for more than 150 years since it is low in cost and easy to perform, and it well reflects VSR. Clinically, Romberg test performed in conditions that cause confusion in vision and proprioception is posturography. In addition, information related to strategy to respond to proprioceptive confusion or rapid change induced by motorizing foothold movement may be obtained. In human bipedal gait related to locomotion, supraspinal control is responsible for gait rhythm. The vestibular system is involved in stable gait directly by adjusting the tension of the antigravity muscles and indirectly by producing information related to a change in the center of gravity according to the angular velocity and position of the head; thus, vestibular disorder gives rise to vestibular ataxia. Vestibular ataxia arises from VSR impairment that changes the movement of the center of gravity in gait initiation, step length, stance width, the timing of ground reaction force, and pre-swing. In this way, information from studies related to locomotion is very important in vestibular rehabilitation.


Res Vestib Sci : Research in Vestibular Science