Pseudo floating toe contacts the floor with unstable standing posture among healthy young

Abstract

Feet are the important parts as only body parts that contact the floor in standing. The function of toes is deeply related with ability to maintain balance in standing. Contacting the floor is one of the important requirements for toes to act efficiently. On the other hand, there are a lot of people who have a toe that doesn't contact the floor in standing posture. In this study, we defined the toe that doesn't contact the floor in double-leg standing with each foot put apart naturally (FA) as pseudo-floating toe (PFT). The purposes of this study are to investigate whether PFT contacts the floor with unstable standing posture or not and to investigate the total time of contacting the floor of PFT unstable standing posture. Subjects were three healthy university students with PFT. To confirm PFT, we made a device that is able to see the plantar surface of contacting the floor in standing. To evaluate whether the toe contacts the floor, we made a device named PFT-contact sensor. In the result, When the standing posture became unstable, PFT of all subjects were contacted the floor, and there was a difference among subjects in the total time that PFT contact the floor. © 2010 International Federation for Medical and Biological Engineering.