Perception of leaning backward while standing and patellar movement.
Hitoshi Asai, Kazuya Hirayama, Yuji Azuma and 1 others
PMID 28932010WHAT IT FOUND
Healthy adults could reproduce a backward leaning position much more accurately when their kneecap moved.
The error at this specific position was roughly half the size of errors at nearby positions. This suggests the kneecap's movement provides a sensory cue for body position.
Key findings
01The absolute error in reproducing the position where patellar movement began was significantly smaller than the error at positions 5% or 10% further forward.
02The perception error index at the patellar movement onset position was 54.1%, which was significantly smaller than the expected value of 100%.
03The onset position of patellar movement was highly consistent for each individual, with a small standard deviation of 2.5%.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they found
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What it does not show
The study only included healthy young adults with no neurological or orthopedic impairments, so results may not apply to patients with balance disorders or knee pathology. Participants were specifically selected because their patellas moved during backward leaning; the study did not include individuals whose patellas do not move, who may use different sensory cues. The study was a small laboratory experiment with only 14 participants. The findings describe sensory perception in healthy standing, not the effect of any therapeutic intervention.
The easy way to misread this
Do not assume that facilitating patellar movement will improve balance in patients. This study measured sensory perception in healthy adults and did not test any treatment or intervention.