Tomoya Ishigaki, a visiting researcher at the Neurorehabilitation Research Center, Kio University, Nami Yamamichi, a graduate of the same graduate school, and Shu Morioka, have clarified the characteristics of "light touch" attitude control for fixed objects and humans.
In general, the standing posture can be stabilized by lightly touching a fixed object such as a handrail or a wall or a human.In order to investigate the effect of such tactile sensation on attitude control, a technique called "light touch" is used in which the object is lightly touched (less than 1N) with a fingertip or the like.
In the past, the characteristics of posture control caused by the difference between fixed objects and human objects that come into contact with light touch have not been clarified. Was set, and posture sway was measured and compared.
As a result, it was confirmed that the posture sway was reduced (stabilization of the standing posture) and the posture sway was increased in frequency with the fixed object light touch.On the other hand, it was found that in the interpersonal light touch, the decrease in posture sway (stabilization of the standing posture) is smaller than that in the fixed object light touch, but the high frequency of the posture sway is unlikely to occur.
In addition, in the light touch to humans, high postural coordination (similar to postural sway) was observed between the two in the low frequency component of postural sway.Since the postural sway of the low frequency component reflects the movement of the human center of gravity, it is considered that the postural coordination between the two is a factor that makes it difficult to cause the high frequency of the postural sway.
In the clinical setting of rehabilitation, supports (handrails, wands, etc.) and manual physical contact of the therapist are frequently used to assist the subject's movements and exercise therapy.It can be said that the results of this research are findings that give consideration to the effects of differences in these methods on the attitude control of the subject.
