Fig. 3

Postural sway quantified by the area of the 95% tolerance ellipse for the center of pressure (CoP) and center of mass (CoM) for all experimental conditions. The white background on the left shows results for standing on the ground, the light yellow background indicates metrics for standing on the beam. Each bar shows the mean and standard error (n = 16) for the different experimental conditions, pooled over all participants. The colored bars show the metrics when the participants used canes; green, blue and red differentiate the three force conditions. A Area of the center of mass (CoM) quantified by the 95% tolerance ellipse. The white bars show the CoM area when participants stood on the ground and on the beam, without canes; the green, blue and red bars represent the three force conditions. B Area of the center of pressure (CoP, Total-CoP and Feet-CoP) quantified by the 95% tolerance ellipse. The two white bars show the CoP area when participants did not use canes. The lower value of CoP on the left represents the participants standing on the ground; the white bar shows the CoP area when participants stood on the beam. The colored bars show the Total-CoP and the Feet-CoP when the participants used canes. (significance levels: ***p < 0.001; *p < 0.05)