Keeping Balance with Vibrating Shoes

DrLudicrous writes "The NYTimes (free registration) is running an article that summerizes a forthcoming Physical Review Letters article. The article is about how low amplitude vibrations can help a person better sense when they are off balance. The authors write that they improved the balance of senior citizens by using small vibrations in the floor, making their sense of balance like that of a 25 year old. Apparently, this background noise helps to stimulate the neurons in the feet, making them more susceptible to detecting imbalances."

side effects ?

[tandr]

But does it mean that after some time they will get used to it? And have even more problems walking on "just" a floor? Or, like with any stimulators, will they need increasing amplitude/freq over time?

Snake Oil

[nebbian]

This seems to me to be another case of the placebo effect. In other words, how to skew your experimental results by using people who "want to believe".

Let's see, how would you do a double blind experiment with these shoes? How can you get shoes that vibrate to not let someone know that they're vibrating?

Miracle cures like this seem to work the following way:

1. Scientist invents theory to explain something.
2. Inventor invents application to test theory.
3. Researcher tests application by a small set of usually questionable experiments.
4. Experiment is judged a success by the researcher. (Of course it is, what sort of researcher would claim a failure?)
5. Investor funds building of these devices
6. People buy "scientifically proven" trinkets.

If any part of this process isn't rigorously tested, then the end result is questionable.

The sad part of all this is that the cure actually might work, simply because the vibration tells the person that the miracle shoes are working and therefore the person will try harder to balance. After all, they bought those miracle shoes at quite a hefty price, so therefore they should be working!

Never underestimate the value of a well-marketed placebo.