Influence of restricted visual input on lower limb joint works of female children during sit-to-stand

Background

The ankle-knee-hip joint systems have structures that can produce mechanical work through elastic, viscoelastic mechanisms or muscle activity. This study aimed to compute sit-to-stand (STS) joint works in lower limbs between blind and sighted children to find the relationship between visual memory and STS joint work variables.

Methods

This study included fifteen female children with congenitally blind (CB) and 30 healthy girls without visual impairments. The children with no visual impairments were randomly divided into two condition groups with 15 each, the eyes open (EO) and the eyes closed (EC). Inverse dynamics calculated joint works by integrating multiple the moment and angular velocity (F1) and force and velocity (F2). They were normalized to body mass and body height.

Results

Generally, the sensitivity of F1 (on both sides in the sagittal and frontal planes) was more than F2 (on the non-dominant side in the mediolateral and vertical axes). In the ML axis, the EC group had insufficient maximal non-dominant hip work relative to the EO group (p = 0.002). In addition, the CB group suffered from low hip efficiency (p = 0.003) and high knee (p < 0.001) mechanical work.

Conclusions

Numerous differences between CB and EC groups (on knee and hip works) showed that the time of visual input deprivation could change the type of human body's strategies to reach the consolidation process and keep adequate balance during STS. Therefore, rehabilitation programs should be aimed at addressing the impairments in the management of restricted visual input during STS performance.