Differences in Reactive Muscle Recruitment Between Standing and Sit-to-Stand Perturbations

Alyssa H. Reeves* and Jessica L. Allen
Neuromechanics of Mobility Lab, Department of Chemical and Biomedical Engineering, West Virginia University, Morgantown, WV 26505

Presentation No.: 65

Assigned Category (Presentation Format): Engineering (Poster Presentations)

Student’s Major: Biomedical Engineering

When moving in day-to-day life, our bodies keep us balanced. Sometimes a disturbance occurs, causing a stumble and we have to recruit our muscles to prevent a fall. How we recruit our muscles depends on how off-balance the stumble puts us and what we were doing when we stumbled. We can examine the relationship between these stumbles and muscle recruitment in a controlled manner by perturbing subjects. Our goal is to find the differences between standing and sit-to-stand perturbations in terms of the muscles that prevent a fall. We analyzed eight subjects’ lower leg muscles and calculated muscle activity immediately following the perturbation. Our results demonstrate that the Lateral Gastrocnemius was recruited the most after standing perturbations and the Vastus Lateralis has significantly less activity in the sit-to-stand perturbations, with all muscle activity increasing as the stumble difficulty increased. This study will help us understand how we stay balanced depending on the situation and help us target a specific muscle if a patient is struggling with gait or arising from a chair.

Funding:

Program/mechanism supporting research/creative efforts: WVU's SURE program (Rita Rio & Michelle Richards-Babb)