ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Sports Act. Living
Sec. Injury Prevention and Rehabilitation
Volume 7 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fspor.2025.1616696
This article is part of the Research TopicLateral Ankle Sprain, Chronic Ankle Instability and Ankle Osteoarthritis: Unraveling Mechanisms and Exploring Management ApproachesView all 8 articles
Effects of Sensorimotor Foot Orthoses on Static Balance in Healthy Adults: A Crossover Randomized Controlled Trial
Provisionally accepted
Stephan Becker1*
Steven Simon1*
Josefine Hayer1Jana Heidger1
Wjatscheslaw Koltschin1
Carlo Dindorf1
Jonas Dully2
Michael Fröhlich1- 1RPTU University Kaiserslautern - Landau, Kaiserslautern, Germany
- 2Department of Sports Science, RPTU Kaiserslautern University of Kaiserslautern-Landau, Kaiserslautern, Germany
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Background: Sensorimotor foot orthoses (SMFO) may be a helpful intervention to improve balance by enhancing proprioceptive input within the sensorimotor control loop. SMFO intervention could have beneficial effects on reducing risk of ankle sprains and falls. Methods: A total of 57 healthy adults (age: 48.5±11.8 years) completed a static balance test (30s) on a force plate, with open eyes (OE) and closed eyes (CE). Balance performance was assessed by using posturography to measure the sway area (mm 2 ), under SMFO and no foot orthoses (NFO) conditions. Results: Descriptive statistics show a reduced median of 1.9 cm 2 (29.6 %) for SMFO with CE. No interaction was found, while main effects showed significant differences (vision: p < 0.001, sole: p = 0.004). Post-hoc tests underlined these results and static balance improved by a median 0.8 cm 2 (14.5 %) with SMFO compared to NFO. Conclusion: The SMFO seems to support static balance and sensorimotor system, which could help to avoid falls and injuries as ankle sprains. Further age groups, long-term effects and the impact on dynamic balance must be studied.
Keywords: SMFO, insoles, Proprioception, Center of Pressure (COP), posturography, postural sway, Fall prevention
Received: 23 Apr 2025; Accepted: 16 Jul 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Becker, Simon, Hayer, Heidger, Koltschin, Dindorf, Dully and Fröhlich. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Stephan Becker, RPTU University Kaiserslautern - Landau, Kaiserslautern, Germany
Steven Simon, RPTU University Kaiserslautern - Landau, Kaiserslautern, Germany
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