The Effect of Cervical Muscle Fatigue on Postural Stability during Immersion Virtual Reality

<p>The visual system is part of the nervous system that enables an individual to scan their environment and assess distance to and from objects. The information captured form our navigating environment is communicated to the brain, which in turn makes the decision on how we respond to spatial orientation. This is particularly useful in helping with balance and determining direction of movement. Our posture and visual stability rely heavily on an efficient and processing of visual, vestibular, and proprioception afferent input. Erroneous sensory information from defective sensory organs may cause a person to experience feelings of lightheadedness, spinning and whirling sensations, and difficulty in maintaining straight posture. Few studies have examined the synergy between cervical spine proprioception and the vestibular ocular reflex (VOR) and as such, their impact on human VOR is less understood. The purpose of this study therefore was to investigate how motion sensitivity is impacted by neck muscle fatigue in normal healthy participants. The overall aim of the present work was to investigate whether impaired somatosensory information from the cervical spine, caused by neck muscle fatigue, would negatively impact postural stability in healthy young participants. Results indicated that healthy young participants who were fatigued had significantly poorer postural stability than those who were not fatigued (p< 0.001). In Conclusion, our research suggests that when assessing motion sensitivity in patients complaining of dizziness with a history of neck trauma, one may consider that VOR dysfunction could have a cervical origin due to somatosensory disturbance, which may lead to poor postural stability.</p>

Name thesis:degree_name

Doctor of Science (DSc)

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Physical Therapy

Year

2015

Author dc:creator

• Alqahtani, Mazen M.

Contributors dc:contributor

• Johnson, Eric
• Bahjri, Khalid
• Landel, Robert
• Lohman, Everett B., III

• Medicine and Health Sciences
• Physical Therapy
• Rehabilitation and Therapy
• Muscle - Skeletal; Muscle Fatigue; Postural Balance; Posture; Reflex - Vestibular-Ocular; Vertebrobasilar Insufficiency
• Spatial orientation; Visual Stability; Proprioception Afferent Input; Cervical Spine Proprioception;

Statement dc:rights

• This title appears here courtesy of the author, who has granted Loma Linda University a limited, non-exclusive right to make this publication available to the public. The author retains all other copyrights.

Language dc:language

English

Repository record dc:identifier

https://scholarsrepository.llu.edu/etd/262

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:scholarsrepository.llu.edu:etd-1259