Postural instability

With postural instability ( "postural" from the Latin postura , entertainment) describes a lack of stability of the upright posture. It is often neurological and occurs e.g. B. in a Parkinson's syndrome .

Those affected have to correct their posture very conspicuously while sitting or standing. One of the reasons for this is that the signals from the positioning sensors of the skeletal muscles are no longer adequately processed via the spinal cord. The equilibrium organ of the inner ear reports a shift in the center of gravity to the corresponding center of the cortex, and there is a conscious instead of an invisible unconscious posture correction.

In small children who have started to sit upright, these rough corrective movements can be observed very well. A learned reflex arc has not yet formed here.

In adults who are not ill, these corrective movements take place independently, unconsciously and so finely tuned through learned reflex arcs between the muscle spindles and the spinal cord that other people hardly notice them or not at all apparently.

See also : Postural Control

literature

• Ernst Mutschler , Hans-Georg Schaible, Peter Vaupel: anatomy, physiology and pathophysiology of humans . 5th, completely revised and expanded edition. Wissenschaftliche Verlagsgesellschaft, Stuttgart 1999, ISBN 3-8047-2342-X .
• Johannes Strobel: Reliability test of the Biodex Balance System. Dissertation . Ulm University, Medical Faculty, 2010. (online at: vts.uni-ulm.de )

This article is about a health issue. It is not used for self-diagnosis and does not replace a diagnosis by a doctor. Please note the information on health issues !