Grant: CIHR Fellowship

"Stand up straight!" We have heard this before but likely have not stopped to consider the seemingly simple task of controlling our posture. The complexity of postural control is revealed in the devastating effects that neurological injury such as stroke can inflict on the ability to maintain balance. Poor balance is one of the top risk factors for experiencing a fall making it critical to understand balance problems in these vulnerable populations. Beyond standing straight: Interacting in a complex world. We often need to maintain balance while engaging in tasks with our arms such as reaching for something in the cupboard. Failure to consider these arm movements can make balance unstable, potentially leading to falls. A critical component of postural control is the ability to coordinate voluntary movements of the arms with ongoing balance control. However, little is known about how stroke alters the ability to integrate voluntary and postural control. My research will quantify postural control during upper limb motor tasks following stroke. Robotic technologies provide continuous measures to objectively quantify behaviour. The KINARM Robotic system can measure arm movement as subjects stand on force plates that measure postural control. My tasks involve reaching to virtual targets on the screen while the robot applies predictable and unpredictable forces to the arm, allowing me to quantify how subjects maintain balance. Individual patient performance will be flagged as impaired if it is worse than a large cohort of healthy data (considering factors such as age, sex and handedness). Sensory, motor and cognitive function will also be assessed with the KINARM as well as traditional clinical tests including measures of falls history. We predict that a higher probability of falls will be correlated with greater impairment in balance control, particularly during voluntary upper limb motor tasks. Our findings will be important to rehab and falls prevention.