Ageing changes the proprioceptive contribution to balance control under different types of mastoid vibration: A cross‐sectional study

作者：Haoyu Xie, Zhuo Wang, Chuhuai Wang, Jung Hung Chien · 发表于：Experimental Physiology · 年份：2025 · DOI：10.1113/ep092548 · 被引用次数：3 · 研究领域：Vestibular and auditory disorders、Hearing Loss and Rehabilitation、Hearing, Cochlea, Tinnitus, Genetics

Ageing-related sensory deteriorations are significantly associated with poor balance control among older individuals, resulting in a higher risk of falling in a dark environment. In particular, the proprioceptive system plays a critical role in maintaining balance. This study aimed to determine how ageing-related sensory deteriorations contributed to balance control during standing under various sensory conflicts. Twenty healthy, active adults (10 young and 10 older) participated in this study. Balance control was quantified through two sensory organization test conditions (SOT-1: unblindfolded standing; SOT-2: blindfolded standing). Mastoid vibration (MV) was applied unilaterally (Uni) or bilaterally (Bi) to mastoid processes, for perturbing vestibular inputs. A total of six trials were assigned to each participant in a random order. Dependent variables included traveling route (TR), performance index (PI) and sample entropy (SaEn) in the anterior-posterior (AP) and medial-lateral (ML) directions. Our results showed that (1) compared to without MV, applying MV significantly increased TR_AP (Uni: P = 0.003; Bi: P < 0.001) and TR_ML (Uni: P = 0.009; Bi: P = 0.011) of all participants during blindfolded standing; (2) the application of Uni and Bi significantly increased PI_AP, PI_ML, SaEn_AP and SaEn_ML of young and older adults when standing in the SOT-1 and SOT-2 conditions (P < 0.05); and (3) older adults demonstrated significantly higher PI_AP, PI_ML and SaEn_ML than young ...