Ice hockey: a model to investigate dynamic balance control
Abstract
Hockey is a contact team game played by international rules. According to the rules the hockey players while struggling for the puck are allowed to perform various co-operative and confrontational actions. Hockey is the faster team game. Players produces high velocities by skating using muscles power (about 30 Km/h). The game requires very fine eye-hand-legs coordination in order to optimize the control of the puck. The main difference between hockey and other team games is not only players velocity but the kind of movement: the typical foot-after-foot terrestrial movement is substituted by gliding movements. The most similar sport is ski-country that is not a team and contact game. Under the point of view of labyrinth control of movement, hockey requires head stabilization and visual field stabilization during repentine high accelerations, repentine high velocity turning of the players and high sudden decelerations during contact between two players. In other words, hockey players must optimize both visual field and head stabilization at and orientation control into the game field at high accelerations/decelerations conditions. The aims of the paper are to evaluate sensorial organization and head stabilization control of hockey players.
Two groups of hockey players have been studied:
a) elite hockey players
b) amatorial hockey players
Sensorial organization have been studied by means of static posturography. In group A, posturography has been performed both using a Neurocom Balance Master equipment and a Delos-DVC handable device. Sensorial organization have been evaluated according to Norrè and Nashner papers, calculating the followig ratios:
Eyes open/eyes closed: Somatosensorial Component
Eyes open/Eyes open on foam rubber pads: Visual Component
Eyes Open/ Eyes closed on foam rubber pads: Vestibular Component
While Balance Master is based on traditional characteristic of platform posturography, Delos DVC (Delos Vertical Controller) is a device used to record displacement of the trunk or the head with reference to vertical of the body segment in the X and Y planes. Thus it was also possible to compare results obtained by mean of traditional platform stabilometry and handable Delos-Vertical Controller Posturography
In group A both kind of posturographic evaluations were performed.In group B was performed Delos-DVC posturography . Delos- DVC, in both groups, was used also to investigate head-to-trunk stabilization.
Ice hockey is an interesting model to investigate dynamci vestibular control of balance
