The Impact of Hearing on Balance

What is it about?

One’s ability to maintain their balance is believed to be the result of the integration of visual, vestibular, and proprioceptive cues. However, several recent studies have provided evidence that auditory cues can impact balance as well. In this paper, we sought (a) to better quantify the impact of auditory cues on narrow stance balance task performance with and without virtual reality and (b) to compare the impact of auditory cues on balance to the impact of visual and proprioceptive cues.

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Photo by Jordan Whitt on Unsplash

Photo by Jordan Whitt on Unsplash

Why is it important?

The inability to maintain one’s balance can be indicative of underlying pathology (e.g., traumatic brain injuries) making the ability to assess it in a quick, controlled, cost-effective manner desirable for the diagnostic process. Virtual reality-based balance assessments provide one solution. However, prior to this paper there had yet to be any research examining the impact of auditory cues on virtual reality-based balance assessments.