Mathematical and statistical concepts applied to health and motor control

Abstract

Variability and complexity are characteristic of human motor behavior. Research concerningmovement patterns generation is a subject ofinterest shared by different areas like sports, health, or neurosciences. Among other motor abilities, postural control or gait, are abilities studied in normal and disabled subjects of different ages, using different types of methodologiesand analyticalapproaches, including linear and nonlinear models. Nevertheless, depending on what we are looking for, these approaches can be more or less accurate for our purposes. Humans as biological systems, must be analyzed in a dynamical way, employing specific tools. The knowledgeof the information givenby these tools can be very helpful in medical research allowing the clinicians to identify and differentiate specific motor manifestations, like tremor, or postural instability, that are common to different pathologies, or even different levels of severity, like in Parkinson’s Disease.