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Sports and exercise medicine
Research
Standard reference values of the postural control in healthy young female adults in Germany: an observational study
  1. Daniela Ohlendorf1,2,
  2. Charlotte Doerry1,
  3. Vanessa Fisch1,
  4. Sebastian Schamberger3,
  5. Christina Erbe1,
  6. Eileen M Wanke1,
  7. David A Groneberg1
  1. 1 Institute of Occupational Medicine, Social Medicine and Environmental Medicine, Goethe University Frankfurt, Germany
  2. 2 School of Dentistry, Department of Orthodontics, Goethe-University Frankfurt, Germany
  3. 3 Department for Orthodontics, University Medical Center of the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, Germany
  1. Correspondence to Dr Daniela Ohlendorf; ohlendorf{at}med.uni-frankfurt.de

Abstract

Objective Many people of all ages suffer from vertigo due to different reasons. The comparison of patient data with standard values can highlight deteriorations or changes in postural control and thus indicate, for example, an increased risk of falling. Our aim is to measure standard values for the postural control of young healthy women.

Design Observational study.

Setting Institute of Occupational Medicine, Social Medicine and Environmental Medicine, Goethe-University Frankfurt/Main.

Participants 106 healthy German female subjects aged between 21 and 30 years (25±2.7 years) were measured. Their average body mass index (BMI) was 21.1±2.61 kg/m².

Outcome measures A pressure measuring platform was used to measure the weight distribution and postural sway in habitual standing. Median, tolerance range and CI were calculated.

Results Height, weight and BMI are comparable to the average young German female population. The load distribution between right and left foot was 49.91%:50.09%. The forefoot was less loaded than the rear foot (33.3%:66.67%). The right rear foot carried most of the body weight (34.34%). The average body sway was 9.50 mm in the frontal and 13.00 mm in the sagittal plane.

Conclusions Standard values for the postural control of the women aged 21–30 years correlate with the already collected data of healthy subjects and can therefore be described as representative. The standard values enable diagnosing and treating impaired balance.

  • postural control
  • female subjects
  • standard value

This is an open access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited, appropriate credit is given, any changes made indicated, and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/.

https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2018-026833

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    Footnotes

    • Contributors DO, CD, VF, SS, CE, EMW and DAG made substantial contributions to the conception and design of the manuscript, DO, CD and VF made substantial contributions to the construction of the measurement protocol and DO has been involved in the statistical data analysis. All authors have read and approved the final manuscript.

    • Funding The authors have not declared a specific grant for this research from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.

    • Competing interests None declared.

    • Ethics approval A positive ethics recommendation from the Department of Medicine of the Goethe University Frankfurt am Main (ethic number: 103/16) was obtained.

    • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.

    • Data sharing statement There are no additional data.

    • Patient consent for publication Not required.