Body Sway Test and Microvibration on Pregnant Women

Abstract

Using a control group of 30 persons and 192 pregnant women, we investigated th body sway test (BST) and microvibration (MSV) as an indicator of the state of the autonomic nervous system. In the control group, these examinations were done after rest, after mirror drawing test (MDT) and after autogenic training (AT), respectively. We studied the changes in data of these examinations, as well as these data in relation to the differences which were found between the normal and abnormal groups of the Yatabe-Guilford test (YG) and Cornell Medical Index (CMI). 348 samples of BST and MV were analyzed with the 192 pregnant women. The data of the pregnant women were compared to those of the control group. The measurements for BST included the locus length of body's center of gravity (LL), standard division of amplitude in the lateral (XSD) and the anteroposterior direction (YSD), and average spectral frequencies of 0.0-1.0Hx (XM1,YM1) and 0.12-1.0Hz (XM2,YM2) of each direction. The MVs were divided into 5 components; MV(0.5-4Hz), MVα(8-13Hz), MVβ_1(13-20Hz), and MVβ_2(20-30Hz). The results were as follows : 1. Control group. 1) XM1 with eyes closed decreased (p<0.05)after the MDT. YSD with eyes open increased (p<0.05) and LL, XM1,YM1,XM2,YM2 with eyes closed decreased (p<0.01,p<0.05,p<0.05,p<0.01andp<0.01,respectively) after AT. 2) MVβ_1 increased (p<0.05) after AT. 3) For each parameter of BST, no significant differece was found between the normal and abnormal groups of YG and CMI. But MVθof YG abnormal group was lower than that of the YG normal group (p<0.05), and MVβ_1 of the CMI abnormal group was higher than that of the CMI normal group (p<0.05) after AT. 4) Significant correlation doeffecients were found between MVθand YSD (p<0.05) , MVθand YM1(p<0.01), MVβ_1 and XSD (p<0.05), MVβ_1 and YSD (p<0.05), and MVβ_1 and YM1(p<0.01). 2. Pregnant woman. 1) Pregnant woman had smaller LL, XM1,XM2 and YM2 than the control group (p<0.01,p<0.05,p<0.01 and p<0.05,respectively). 2) Pregnant women had higher MV, θ, β_1,β_2(p<0.01,p<0.05,p<0.01 and p<0.01,respectively) and lower MV α (p<0.05) than the control group. 3) LL, XSD and YSD at the 4th month of pregnancy were lower (p<0.05,p<0.05 and p<0.01,respectively) and LL, XSD and YSD at the 10th month of pregnancy were higher(p<0.05,p<0.05 and p<0.05,respectively) than the average values for all pregnant women. 4) XSD of premigravida was smaller than that of multigravida (p<0.05). MVθ of grimigravida was lower than that of multigravida (p<0.01) 5) Significant correlation coefficients were found between MVθand XSD (p<0.05), MVθ and YM1(p<0.05), and MVβ_1 and XM2(p<0.05). We suggenst that these 2 examinatins are useful to measure the state of the autonomic nervous system.