Abstract
Experiments on balance beam walking have demonstrated that brief, intermittent visual disruptions increase the efficacy of beam walking practice compared to practicing with full vision. Our objective was to determine whether complete removal of visual feedback during balance beam walking practice would influence balance improvements. We hypothesized that the removal of vision during practice would lead to less balance improvements than practicing with normal vision due to the specificity of practice.
Twenty young adults (23±5 years; 10 male) practiced walking on a treadmill-mounted balance beam at a fixed speed for 30 minutes either with or without normal vision. We calculated the number of step-offs per minute pre-, during, and post-training as well as the percent change in step-offs per minute between pre- and post-training.
Although the no vision group had twice as many step-offs per minute during training as the normal vision group, both groups demonstrated similar improvements throughout the testing session. Both groups demonstrated a similar number of step-offs per minute during pre- and post-training, and about 40% improvement.
Contrary to our hypothesis, our results suggest that complete removal of vision did not have a negative effect on balance training, as both the full vision and no vision groups improved similarly between pre- and post-training. Likely, the removal of vision resulted in sensory reweighting, with a greater emphasis on proprioceptive, cutaneous, and vestibular inputs.
