The effect of internal attentional focus instructions and various distances of external attention on the static and dynamic balance of the chemical veterans with movement impairment

Research has shown that the type of attentional instructions plays a vital role in performance and learning of various skills, including balance skills and postural control. The purpose of the present study was to investigate the effect of internal and external (close & far) attentional focus on the static and dynamic balance of chemical veterans with movement impairment.

This research is quasi-experimental. The subjects were 30 chemical veterans with movement impairment who were referred to a military hospital in Tehran in 2017 were selected using Krejcie & Morgan sampling method and participated in the study. Test assignments included stork (static balance) and a balance beam test (dynamic balance), which was performed 12 times for both states of balance and 4 states (internal focus, far external attention, close external attention, and control).

The results of variance analysis with repeated measurements (ANOVA) showed that the participants in both circumferences of external (close & far) attentional focus (P=0.001) had a better static and dynamic balance than the internal and control conditions. 

The finding of the present study supports constrained-action hypothesis and explicit processing hypothesis and shows that focusing on the effects of movement in the environment improves the motor's performance of chemical veterans with movement impairment in the static and dynamic balance task.