Sex Differences in Postural Control in Middle School Students (11–14 Years) Using Stabilometry

Postural control (PC) is the capacity to integrate sensory information (visual, somatosensory, and vestibular) to generate muscular responses that maintain an upright posture. PC reflects overall musculoskeletal and neurological health. Establishing normative PC values in healthy middle school students (MSS), ages 11 to 14 years, is important for facilitating the early detection of balance-related anomalies. However, this process is complicated by variations in pubertal development, and existing research on sex differences in PC among MSS has produced inconclusive findings. Therefore, PC was measured using a portable force platform (stabilometry) under 12 testing conditions: three stances [two-feet, tandem, one-foot] with two vision states (eyes open/closed) on two surfaces (firm/foam). Two 30-sec trials in all 12 stances were performed by 164 (68 females, 12.1 ± 0.9 yrs; 96 males, 12.3 ± 1.0 yrs) MSS, with the best effort (i.e., lowest score) used for statistical analysis. Postural summary statistics of path length (mm), median velocity (MD, mm/sec), mean velocity (MN, mm/sec), and sway area (mm2) were calculated and compared. Results demonstrated that females consistently achieved better PC in all four summary statistics across stances. This study suggests that separate normative values for PC should be established for male and female MSS.