Intervention for Enhancing Whole-Body Awareness Improves Subsequently Performed Postural Tasks

[Purpose] The present study investigated whether intervention for enhancing body awareness would lead to reduced postural sway during a quiet standing task which was performed subsequent to the intervention. [Subjects] The participants were 10 healthy adults. [Methods] The 10 participants performed a quiet standing task under three different postural conditions: bipedal (easy), unipedal (moderately difficult), and unipedal on a foam surface (difficult). During the intervention the participants sat on a chair with their eyes closed and attempted to focus on the active-assistive movement among the postural conditions of the whole body. [Results] Comparison of the postural sway prior to and after the intervention showed that postural sway was significantly reduced after the intervention in the unipedal and unipedal on the foam surface conditions but not in the bipedal condition. [Conclusion] These findings suggest that an intervention that enhances body awareness, provided prior to performing a postural task, is likely to be effective at reducing the postural sway under difficult postural conditions.