Energy Expenditure, Physical Work Load and Postural Control During Walking on aMoving Platform

摘要

An experiment was performed in which subjects were required to walk on atreadmill inside a moving ship motion simulator (SMS). Ventilatory measures of energy consumption, heart rate, and measures of postural control were taken and compared to a condition in which the SMS did not move. Eleven SMS movement conditions were investigated, two of which consisted of pure one dimensional sinusoidal movements (vertical motion or roll), two of simulated ship movements, and seven of various combinations of (large or small) vertical, pitch and roll movements, derived from these simulated ship motion profiles. The results showed that energy expenditure was largest in conditions which included either large pitch movements, or Large roll components in combination with pitch. Energy expenditure was intermediate in all other conditions which included Large roll movements. Effects of the particular vertical motions used in the present study, were not observed. in this particular study, physiological task toad (expressed in terms of ventilatory parameters) was shown to increase on average with 15% during SMS movements. Heart rate appeared to be a less reliabLe measure of energy expenditure. Movement induced interruptions (MII,s) of the walking task-a measure of postural control-were most frequent in conditions which included a large roll component. The relevance of this work with respect to the development of work Load criteria at sea, for the estimation of a crew's operational capacity, and for ship building design are given, together with some recommendations for further research. Energy expenditure, Heart rate, Ship movements, Task performance, Ventilatory parameters.