Open AccessTrunk Position Sense in Older Tai Chi Sword Practitioners
Author(s) -
Wai Nam Tsang,
Siu Ngor Fu,
Frederick Lui,
C.W.Y. Hui-Chan
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
hong kong physiotherapy journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.343
H-Index - 15
eISSN - 1876-441X
pISSN - 1013-7025
DOI - 10.1016/s1013-7025(10)70009-9
Subject(s) - medicine , sword , trunk , physical medicine and rehabilitation , position (finance) , anatomy , physical therapy , ecology , computer science , biology , operating system , finance , economics
To examine whether older Tai Chi sword practitioners had developed better trunk position sense than healthy control subjects, 16 female Tai Chi sword practitioners from a local community Tai Chi Club in Hong Kong were compared with 11 female healthy control subjects. Active trunk repositioning was used to test trunk proprioceptive acuity. Tai Chi sword practitioners made significantly smaller absolute angle errors than control subjects in trunk rotation to the left (2.2° ± 0.9° vs. 4.4° ± 2.7°; p = 0.006) and to the right (2.1° ± 0.9° vs. 4.2° ± 2.9° of control; p = 0.01), but there were negligible improvements in trunk forward flexion (3.9° ± 3.0° and 4.8° ± 3.0°, respectively; p = 0.46). These results demonstrate that Tai Chi sword practitioners had developed better position sense in trunk rotation but not in trunk flexion than healthy older subjects