Textured foot orthotics and proprioception: augmenting cutaneous feedback to improve joint position sense accuracy

The maintenance of proprioception in upright standing posture and joint position sense accuracy (JPSA), is contingent on the coordination of sensory inputs made available to individuals during the task. Adding texture to augment cutaneous feedback on neuromuscular control of the ankle joint has yet to be studied in JPSA, thus motivating the purpose of this research to investigate the changes in ankle joint proprioception when wearing textured (FOTs) and non-textured orthoses (FOs) during a passive ankle joint position reproduction task in healthy young and middle-aged individuals (n = 48; 31 under 30 years, 17 over 30 years). Error accuracy, tibialis anterior and medial gastrocnemius muscle activity, and centre of pressure displacement were recorded from 48 participants while completing four ankle JPSA replication tasks (5°, 10° plantarflexion, 5°, 10° dorsiflexion) in stance. When the middle-aged participants (over 30 years) completed the dorsiflexion 5° JPSA task, a 31% error reduction was observed standing in FOTs compared to FOs. These results provide evidence supporting the effectiveness of adding cutaneous feedback to improve proprioception in middle-aged individuals.