Dynamical stability of post-stroke volunteers during soccer headers simulated by a digital game

ABSTRACT

Postural stability is a goal of physical therapy treatment which can be achieved by bilateral weight transfer exercises. Digital games come as an alternative to performing these exercises, and their evaluation still needs improvement. We proposed using biomechanical variables to assess postural stability behavior. We aimed to investigate dynamic postural stability during soccer headers simulated by a digital game with different speed requirements. For this, 16 post-stroke volunteers (12 men and 4 women with a mean age of 56 years) and 16 healthy volunteers, paired by sex and age, participated in the experimental collection, in which they were subjected to the digital game “Cabeceio” (Soccer Heading), which has five speed levels, from slowest to the fastest, lasting 30 seconds each. From the kinematic signals, we could estimate our indicators of interest: the area of the base of support and the margin of stability, the latter defined as the smallest distance between the edges of the base of support and the vertical projection of the extrapolated CM, considering CM speed. The values of the base of support failed to differ between game speed levels, but did so between groups. The margin of stability failed to differ between levels and groups. The speed levels of the game possibly failed to encourage volunteers to pursue different strategies to maintain dynamic stability, such as taking a step. Although they maintained different support bases, post-stroke individuals adopted a smaller base of support than healthy ones.

Keywords:
Stroke; Posture; Rehabilitation; Postural Balance; Video Games