Effects of postural-control training with different sensory reweightings in a patient with body lateropulsion: a single-subject design study

ABSTRACT

Introduction

Body lateropulsion (BL) is an active lateral tilt of the body during standing or walking that is thought to be affected by a lesion of the vestibulospinal tract (VST) and the subjective visual vertical (SVV) tilt. Interventions for BL have not been established.

Objective

We examined the effects of postural-control training with different sensory reweighting on standing postural control in a patient with BL.

Methods

The patient had BL to the left when standing or walking due to a left-side medullary and cerebellar infarct. This study was a single-subject A-B design with follow-up: Phase A was postural-control training with visual feedback; phase B provided reweighting plantar somatosensory information. Postural control, VST excitability, and SVV were measured.

Results

At baseline and phase A, the patient could not stand with eyes-closed on a rubber mat, but became able to stand in phase B. The mediolateral center of pressure (COP) position did not change significantly, but the COP velocity decreased significantly during phase B and the follow-up on the firm surface. VST excitability was lower on the BL versus the non-BL side, and the SVV deviated to the right throughout the study.

Conclusion

Postural-control training with reweighting somatosensory information might improve postural control in a patient with BL.

KEYWORDS:

• Case report
• body lateropulsion
• sensory reweighting
• vestibulospinal tract
• postural control

Acknowledgments

We thank Shigeru Morimoto for the valuable suggestions concerning this study. This work was supported by a grant from the JSPS KAKENHI (no. 20K19365).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science [20K19365].