A Plantar-pressure Based Tongue-placed Tactile Biofeedback System for Balance Improvement

TL;DR

This study introduces a novel tongue-placed tactile biofeedback system that provides supplementary sensory information from foot pressure to improve balance in healthy adults.

Contribution

The paper presents an original biofeedback system using a tongue display to enhance postural control by supplementing sensory information.

Findings

Improved balance in young adults using the TDU system.

Effective supplementation of sensory input enhances postural stability.

Potential for assistive balance devices in clinical settings.

Abstract

Maintaining an upright stance represents a complex task, which is achieved by integrating sensory information from the visual, vestibular and somatosensory systems. When one of these sensory inputs becomes unavailable and/or inaccurate and/or unreliable, postural control generally is degraded. One way to solve this problem is to supplement and/or substitute limited/altered/missing sensory information by providing additional sensory information to the central nervous system via an alternative sensory modality. Along these lines, we developed an original biofeedback system [1] whose underlying principle consists in supplying the user with supplementary sensory information related to foot sole pressure distribution through a tongue-placed output device (Tongue Display Unit, "TDU" [2]). The purpose of the present experiment was to assess its effectiveness in improving balance in young healthy adults.