Ageing changes the proprioceptive contribution to balance control under different types of mastoid vibration: A cross‐sectional study

Ageing-related sensory deteriorations are significantly associated with poor balance control among older individuals, resulting in a higher risk of falling in a dark environment. In particular, the proprioceptive system plays a critical role in maintaining balance. This study aimed to determine how ageing-related sensory deteriorations contributed to balance control during standing under various sensory conflicts. Twenty healthy, active adults (10 young and 10 older) participated in this study. Balance control was quantified through two sensory organization test conditions (SOT-1: unblindfolded standing; SOT-2: blindfolded standing). Mastoid vibration (MV) was applied unilaterally (Uni) or bilaterally (Bi) to mastoid processes, for perturbing vestibular inputs. A total of six trials were assigned to each participant in a random order. Dependent variables included traveling route (TR), performance index (PI) and sample entropy (SaEn) in the anterior-posterior (AP) and medial-lateral (ML) directions. Our results showed that (1) compared to without MV, applying MV significantly increased TR_AP (Uni: P = 0.003; Bi: P < 0.001) and TR_ML (Uni: P = 0.009; Bi: P = 0.011) of all participants during blindfolded standing; (2) the application of Uni and Bi significantly increased PI_AP, PI_ML, SaEn_AP and SaEn_ML of young and older adults when standing in the SOT-1 and SOT-2 conditions (P < 0.05); and (3) older adults demonstrated significantly higher PI_AP, PI_ML and SaEn_ML than young adults in standing. This study indicated the potential risk of imbalance attributed to ageing-related proprioceptive and vestibular deteriorations even in healthy older adults. Furthermore, unilateral MV had a stronger effect on disturbing ML balance control than bilateral MV.