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Maintaining standing balance by handrail grasping.

Thiago A Sarraf1, Daniel S Marigold, Stephen N Robinovitch

  • 1Department of Biomedical Physiology and Kinesiology, Simon Fraser University, BC, Canada.

Gait & Posture
|August 17, 2013
PubMed
Summary

Standing on moving vehicles is difficult. This study found that standing sideways and grasping a handrail at shoulder-height or overhead can minimize the effort needed to maintain balance during vehicle starts.

Keywords:
Balance recoveryFallsGraspingMusculoskeletal equilibriumPublic transportation

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Area of Science:

  • Biomechanics
  • Human Factors Engineering
  • Transportation Safety

Background:

  • Passenger falls on public transport are a major cause of injury.
  • Standing passengers use handrails to maintain balance against vehicle motion.
  • Understanding optimal handrail use is crucial for passenger safety.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate how handrail location and perturbation characteristics affect biomechanical effort and muscle activation during simulated vehicle starts.
  • To determine the most effective handrail grasping strategy for maintaining balance.

Main Methods:

  • Experiments simulated vehicle starts with varying handrail locations (overhead, shoulder-height), perturbation directions (forward, backward, left, right), and magnitudes.
  • Measured biomechanical effort: peak center-of-pressure (COP) excursion and hand force.
  • Assessed muscle activations: onset and integrated electromyography (EMG) activity.

Main Results:

  • Handrail position influenced COP excursions and hand forces differently based on perturbation direction.
  • Overhead grasping reduced hand force during forward/backward perturbations, while shoulder-height grasping reduced COP excursion.
  • Sideways stances minimized the effect of handrail location and overall biomechanical effort.

Conclusions:

  • For forward/backward facing stances, overhead grasping minimizes hand force, and shoulder-height grasping minimizes COP excursion.
  • A sideways stance appears to be the most effective strategy for minimizing biomechanical effort during vehicle starts.
  • Grasping at either shoulder-height or overhead while in a sideways stance is recommended for passenger safety.