Chus Jiménez Feldenkrais Summit

People having peripheral neuropathy suffer lack of sensitivity in the limbs, and very frequently the feet are the most affected area. Loss of strength and pain can be present as well. This influences the ability to maintain postural control during walking, with people tending to fall down up to 22 times more than the healthy population. During the last decades, multiple studies have demonstrated the intricate functioning of the nervous system in relationship to gait. Vision, hearing, the vestibular system and the somatosensory system are senses that, working together with the muscular system, play a major role in the maintenance of balance during walking.

In spite of that, the consideration of human gait requires us to not only examine sensory and motor aspects of motion, but think about several executive functions such as inhibitory control, working memory and attention, which are processed in the central nervous system. Recent research points to some promising developments in this field, providing evidence of the plasticity of several structures of the nervous system. Sensorimotor training, attending to the whole packet of skills regarding postural control, can enable tissue regeneration and a new distribution of neural paths so that walking skills can be recovered.