Postural responses of patients with bilateral vestibular loss and healthy subjects to sinusoidal tilts

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Tezin Türü: Yüksek Lisans

Tezin Yürütüldüğü Kurum: Orta Doğu Teknik Üniversitesi, Mühendislik Fakültesi, Mühendislik Bilimleri Bölümü, Türkiye

Tezin Onay Tarihi: 2017

Öğrenci: MEHMET İMİR

Danışman: SENİH GÜRSES

Özet:

Posture control to maintain the stability of upright posture is a very complex task. It requires sensorimotor integration of all sense organs. If one of these organs loses its functionality, the person may have difficulties in maintaining postural balance. This study examines the difference in postural responses of patients with bilateral vestibular loss and healthy subjects to sinusoidal tilts. It has shown that center of mass(CoM) motions of control and patient groups were similar respect to space coordinates but different respect to platform coordinates at low frequency (f=0.05 Hz). In contrast, their both CoM motions became more distinct at high frequency (f=0.17 Hz). It is argued that vestibular loss can be compensated by other available sensory information at low frequency. However, this compensation started to inadequate for maintaining postural balance at high frequency especially in the absence of visual information. In addition, heterogeneous response characteristics of patients in this study suggest that ability of patients to compensate their vestibular sensory loss differ across patients.