Background: During postural control, older adults are more dependent on proprioception than are young adults. Ankle proprioception, which plays an important role in maintaining postural balance, decreases with age. Published studies are insufficient to establish a significant age difference in postural sway resulting from the known age-related decrease in ankle proprioception and do not examine various detailed test conditions.
Objects: The present study aimed to compare ankle proprioception between older and younger groups along dimensions of position vs. force proprioception and dorsiflexion vs. plantarflexion. The present study also aimed to compare postural sway between young and older women during quiet standing under two sensory conditions.
Methods: We recruited seven young women aged 21–24 and seven older women aged 60–63. Ankle proprioception was assessed as the accuracy of the joint position sense (JPS) and the force sense (FS). Postural sway was assessed using center-of-pressure measurements recorded during quiet standing under two sensory positions: eyes open and eyes closed with head tilted back.
Results: Older women had lower JPS in dorsiflexion and lower FS in plantarflexion than did younger women. We found no significant age differences in JPS in plantarflexion or in FS in dorsiflexion. We observed a main effect of group on postural sway in two sway parameters out of three. We observed significant differences in JPS with dorsiflexion, and in FS with plantarflexion. Conclusion: Proprioception for ankle plantar flexor decreased more significantly with aging than did that for ankle dorsiflexor, accounting for the impaired postural balance observed in older women.

INTRODUCTION
MATERIALS AND METHODS
    1. Participants
    2. Instrumentation
    3. Protocols
    4. Statistical Analysis
RESULTS
    1. Ankle Proprioception
    2. Postural Sway
DISCUSSION
CONCLUSIONS
FUNDING
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
CONFLICTS OF INTEREST
AUTHOR CONTRIBUTIONS
ORCID
REFERENCES

• Seo-hyun Kim(Department of Physical Therapy, The Graduate School, Yonsei University)
• Chung-hwi Yi(Department of Physical Therapy, College of Software and Digital Healthcare Convergence, Yonsei University, Wonju) Corresponding author
• Jin-seok Lim(Department of Physical Therapy, The Graduate School, Yonsei University)
• One-bin Lim(Department of Physical Therapy, College of Software and Digital Healthcare Convergence, Yonsei University, Wonju, Department of Physical Therapy, Mokpo Science University, Mokpo, Korea)