Effect of Intrinsic Elasticity and Damping Coefficients Variations on Balance Maintaining by Human

Abstract

Maintaining balance by a person, despite the fact that it seems to be something completely natural, is a very complex process. It begins with a deep feeling, i.e. proprioception, resulting from the operation of the nervous system, which registers even slight movements of the body from an upright standing position and reacts to these deviations by activating appropriate strategies to regain balance. It is realized by sequential activation of antagonistic muscles, which, acting alternately, are responsible for correcting the posture. In such a case, when one of the muscles is responsible for initiating the movement, the other, acting in the opposite way, tries to slow down the movement. With appropriate simplifications, such a system can be presented as a mechanical system in the form of an inverted pendulum with an appropriate number of degrees of freedom. The antagonistic work of muscles in mathematical models of such systems is taken into account by using elastic and damping elements. It should be remembered, however, that with the appearance of disease processes or processes related to the aging of the human body, the values of the parameters describing these elements may change. The article presents how the change of elasticity and damping parameters generated by the muscles influences the simulation of maintaining the balance.