Postural balance in Alzheimer’s disease patients undergoing sensory pitfalls

Abstract

Despite consensus regarding the interference of cognitive processes on the human balance, the impact that different sensory stimuli have on the stabilometric measures remains unclear. Here, we investigated changes in the postural balance of individuals with Alzheimer's disease (AD) and in healthy controls undergoing different proprioceptive and somesthetic pitfalls. We included 17 subjects submitted to eight sensorimotor dynamics with differences in the support bases, contact surfaces, and visual clues. The measurements used to assess participants balance were as follows: position of the body in space, range of instability, area of the support base, and velocity of postural control. From a total of 56 cross-sectional analyses, 21.42% pointed out differences between groups. Longitudinal analyses showed that tasks with proprioceptive and somesthetic pitfalls similarly impact imbalance in both groups. The current results suggest that AD subjects and healthy controls had different patterns submitted to balance, but suffered similar interference when undergoing proprioceptive and somesthetic challenges.