Do sensorimotor control properties mediate sway in people with chronic balance complaints following mTBI?

This was an exploratory subset of a larger study, not a randomised treatment trial, so it cannot show that changing motor activation or time delay would improve balance. The sample was a convenience sample of 61 healthy controls and 58 participants with persistent balance problems after mTBI, and participants were excluded for cognitive impairment, other balance limiting conditions, recent substance abuse, inability to stop balance altering medication, or significant pain, so it may not represent all patients with chronic symptoms. The impairment predictor was based on questionnaire scores, and the balance outcome was sway dispersion from instrumented stance tests, so the findings may not map onto functional balance tasks or daily activities. The models explained only 19% of variance in Sway Dispersion in the Motor Activation model, 16% in the Time Delay model, and 28% in the Sensory Weighting model. The analysis tested several sensorimotor factors after data reduction, and the alpha level was set at 0.05 for exploratory purposes, so the mediating effects should be treated as preliminary.

The authors declared no conflicts of interest. The paper reports U.S. Government research support and describes exploratory findings from a larger study identified by NCT02748109.

Do not conclude that balance exercises targeting motor activation or response delay will improve sway after mild traumatic brain injury. This was an observational mediation analysis, not a treatment trial, and the Motor Activation model explained 19% of variance in Sway Dispersion while the Time Delay model explained 16%.