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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Bioeng. Biotechnol.
Sec. Biomechanics
Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fbioe.2025.1517471
This article is part of the Research Topic Motion Tracking and Deformation Analysis in Biomechanics View all 11 articles

Dynamic Balance Control in Healthy Young Women during Stair Descent: A Plantar Pressure-Based Study

Provisionally accepted
Ruiqin Wang Ruiqin Wang 1Jinfeng Cao Jinfeng Cao 2Xu HaoRan Xu HaoRan 1Panjing Guo Panjing Guo 1Li Yumin Li Yumin 1Yuyi Fan Yuyi Fan 1Yunfei Gui Yunfei Gui 1Leqi LI Leqi LI 3Roger David Adams Roger David Adams 4Jia Han Jia Han 3,4*Jie Lyu Jie Lyu 3*
  • 1 University of Shanghai for Science and Technology, Shanghai, China
  • 2 Shanghai University, Shanghai, Shanghai Municipality, China
  • 3 Shanghai University of Medicine and Health Sciences, Shanghai, China
  • 4 University of Canberra, Canberra, Australia

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Background: Women are more likely to fall or even die when the ladder falls, which seriously affects the quality of daily life. It is necessary to better understand the plantar mechanism of the ladder falls and put forward reasonable suggestions.Method: Twenty healthy young women volunteered to participate in the experiment.The study used the F-scan plantar pressure to explore the difference in the plantar pressure in the dominance of the leading foot across four step descent height conditions.The landing strategy employed was recorded during the experiment. The Center of Pressure (COP), along with its medial-lateral (ML) and anterior-posterior (AP) adjustment velocities, and the VCOP, RCOP-ML, and RCOP-AP were analyzed.Result: With an increase in the step height, significant enhancements were observed in the VCOP-ML (p<0.001), VCOP-AP (p<0.001), RCOP-ML (p<0.001), and RCOP-AP (p<0.001) during landing. There was no significant difference in the kinematic parameters of plantar pressure during stair descent, regardless of whether the dominant foot or non-dominant foot was the leading foot.This study found that among young women, an increase in step height during descent significantly affected the plantar pressure and led to greater COP adjustment in the directions of ML and AP, increasing the risk of injury. At a step height of 5cm, the first choice of the landing strategy for female subjects began to change from the hindfoot to the forefoot. Although there were no significant differences in plantar pressure data and landing strategies between subjects using the dominant side and nondominant side as the forefoot, the dominant side forefoot exhibited better postural balance control than the nondominant side forefoot.

    Keywords: Stair descent, Females, Landing strategy, COP, Kinematic parameters, Landing strategy

    Received: 26 Oct 2024; Accepted: 08 Jan 2025.

    Copyright: © 2025 Wang, Cao, HaoRan, Guo, Yumin, Fan, Gui, LI, Adams, Han and Lyu. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence:
    Jia Han, Shanghai University of Medicine and Health Sciences, Shanghai, 201318, China
    Jie Lyu, Shanghai University of Medicine and Health Sciences, Shanghai, 201318, China

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