Research in Sport Medicine and Technology

Introduction and purpose: The ability to control different positions of the body in space results from the complex interaction of nervous, sensory, and skeletal-muscular systems, which is generally defined as posture control. Therefore, it is important to study how new interactions occur through sensory inputs and create different motor responses to restore balance disturbances. The purpose of this study was to investigate the underlying mechanisms of age-related differences in postural control of 7-18-year-old girls by determining the differences between different age groups and adults in their sensory preferences for compensatory responses. Methodology: 118 non-athlete girls aged 7 to 18 years were selected using the available sampling method from schools in the 3rd district of Tehran and divided into four age groups: 7-9 (n=31), 10-12 (n=32), 13-15 (n=28) and 16-18 (n=27) were divided. Also, a reference group of adults (n=28 with an average age of 27.9 years) were investigated for comparison (total = 146). A sensory organization test (SOT) with Computerized Dynamic Posturography was used to manipulate different sensory inputs. Findings: The results of the one-way analysis of variance with a post hoc test showed that there is a significant difference between all age groups in 6 conditions of the test (P<0.05). The use of bodily and vestibular sensory inputs to maintain balance was almost the same in different age groups, but significant differences were observed in the use of visual inputs. Discussion and conclusion: From the age of 13, the postural control performance of girls becomes similar to that of adults, which can be due to the delayed development of the visual system. In general, it seems that for optimum control, the maturation of the somatosensory system occurs before the maturation of the vestibular and visual systems. After that, vestibular and visual systems are matured respectively.