Investigation of the Information Provided by Light Touch for Balance Improvement in Humans

摘要

This study investigates the information provided by Light Touch (LT) in improving human postural stability without mechanical assistance. Light Touch, an interaction force with a magnitude about 1 N, is known to improve postural stability in humans during quiet standing. However, the nature of the information from LT that helped improve balance is yet unknown. In this work, we hypothesized that LT provides information about one's body kinematics. We used a haptic robot to provide modulated, measurable light interaction force on the high back haptic location of humans to provide body kinematics-dependent information through LT. Standing balance experiments were performed with different force conditions on a group of ten healthy young participants. Results from these experiments have shown significant improvement in standing balance in conditions that provided LT over the condition that had no touch/contact. No further improvement was observed with additional position information provided in the form of variable vibration. Further data analysis revealed that the embedded information in LT provided in this study was partly position-dependent and mostly velocity-dependent. This positive effect of LT on back advances the research on implementing LT into wearable devices that can help improve postural stability of humans.