Postural control and balance in a cohort of healthy people living in Europe

Authors:
Antonino Patti (MSc), Antonino Bianco (PhD), Nese Sahin (PhD), Damir Sekulic (PhD), Antonio Paoli (MD), Angelo Iovane (MD), Giuseppe Messina (MD), Pierre Marie Gagey (MD), Antonio Palma (MD)

Keywords:
balance, normative data, normative values, postural control, posturography

In the past 20 years, posturography has been widely used in the medical field. This observational study aimed to report the values derived from posturography of a wide set of healthy subjects from various European countries using a plantar pressure platform and a standardized method of measurement.

A random cluster sampling of 914 healthy subjects aged between 7.0 and 85.99 years, stratified by age, was carried out. To provide percentile values of our cohort, data were processed to obtain 3 curves corresponding to the following percentiles: 25th, 50th, 75th, and the interquartile range. Distance-weighted least squares method was used to represent the percentile on appropriate graphs.

As the study included a relatively large quantity of data collected using a standardized protocol, these results could be used as normative values of posturography for similar populations. On the basis of this data, correct diagnostic clues will be available to clinicians and professionals in the field. However, further studies are needed to confirm our findings.