Real sounds influence postural stability in people with vestibular loss but not in healthy controls.
<h4>Objective</h4>What we hear may influence postural control, particularly in people with vestibular hypofunction. Would hearing a moving subway destabilize people similarly to seeing the train move? We investigated how people with unilateral vestibular hypofunction and healthy controls...
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| Main Authors: | , , , , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Public Library of Science (PLoS)
2025-01-01
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| Series: | PLoS ONE |
| Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0317955 |
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| Summary: | <h4>Objective</h4>What we hear may influence postural control, particularly in people with vestibular hypofunction. Would hearing a moving subway destabilize people similarly to seeing the train move? We investigated how people with unilateral vestibular hypofunction and healthy controls incorporated broadband and real-recorded sounds with visual load for balance in an immersive contextual scene.<h4>Design</h4>Participants stood on foam placed on a force-platform, wore the HTC Vive headset, and observed an immersive subway environment. Each 60-second condition repeated twice: static or dynamic visual with no sound or static white noise or real recorded subway station sounds [real] played from headphones.<h4>Setting</h4>Human motion laboratory.<h4>Participants</h4>41 healthy controls (mean age 52 years, range 22-78) and 28 participants with unilateral peripheral vestibular hypofunction (mean age 61.5, 27-82).<h4>Main outcome measures</h4>We collected center-of-pressure (COP, anterior-posterior, medio-lateral) from the force-platform and head (anterior-posterior, medio-lateral, pitch, yaw, roll) from the headset and quantified root mean square velocity (cm/s or rad/s).<h4>Results</h4>Adjusting for age, the vestibular group showed significantly more sway than controls on: COP medio-lateral (no sound or real with static or dynamic visual); COP anterior-posterior (only on dynamic visuals in the presence of either sound); head medio-lateral and anterior-posterior (all conditions), head pitch and yaw (only on dynamic visuals in the presence of either sound). A significant increase in sway with sounds was observed for the vestibular group only on dynamic visuals COP anterior-posterior and head yaw (real) and head anterior-posterior and pitch (either sound).<h4>Conclusions</h4>The addition of auditory stimuli, particularly contextually-accurate sounds, to a challenging, standing balance task in real-life simulation increased sway in people with vestibular hypofunction but not in healthy controls.<h4>Trial registration</h4>Clinical trial registrationThis study was registered on clinicaltrials.gov at the following link: https://clinicaltrials.gov/study/NCT04479761. |
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| ISSN: | 1932-6203 |