Balance exercise programs are an effective way to prevent falls in older people. Exercises are mostly focused on controlling the center of mass while reducing the base of support, for example by standing on one leg. Balance control however, also requires adaptive responses that would require a person to either […]
Senses such as sight, touch or hearing should tell us how things are – no more and no less, because our actions, and ultimately our survival, depend on them. However, senses cannot afford the luxury of being confused but have to ‘guess’ how things are even when sensory input is […]
Proprioception is the sense of the body’s own actions in space. Proprioception is disrupted in many clinical conditions such as dystonia, Parkinson’s disease and stroke. This disruption affects the ability of these individuals to produce “normal” movements. For years different paradigms have been used by researchers to examine proprioception. Dr. Lee […]
Ageing decreases exercise performance and is frequently accompanied by reductions in cognitive performance. Deterioration in the physiological capacity to stand, walk and exercise leads to falling over. This can signify a serious deterioration in sensorimotor control. In the elderly, falling leads to serious morbidity and mortality with major costs to society. […]
Poor balance is common in people with Parkinson’s Disease (PD). This can significantly impact on quality of life. The ability to generate a step quickly and accurately after a loss of balance is critical to avoid falling. The most effective medical treatment for PD (levodopa) seems to offer no benefit […]
Previous research had shown that when people are required to simultaneously perform a cognitive and balance task their performance is worsened in one or both tasks, and that this interference is even more marked in people with reduced sensorimotor and/or cognitive functioning due to age and disease [1-2]. Interestingly, it […]
We continually receive sensory information about our environment and ourselves. Similar to human interactions, some sources of information are more credible than others. Thus, how does the central nervous system decide what source of information to listen to? What happens if the only available source of information is a distorted […]
The brain cannot properly control the movement of the body without knowing something about its size. However, the body does not have receptors to signal size directly, the brain has to work it out using information from multiple senses (e.g. touch, vision, proprioception) and then store it in body “maps” […]
Awareness of our physical ability is critically important when we decide on what actions to take. Can I reach that far?, Can I walk on that path?, Can I step that high? This is particularly important for older people whose physical function declines with age and who are at increased […]
Inputs from specialised cutaneous and muscle afferents are crucial for tactile manipulation and accurate movement and postural control. Both sets of afferents project to the cerebral cortex and contribute to proprioceptive senses (e.g. Proske & Gandevia, 2012). We used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to compare the cortical activation produced by cutaneous […]
