A physical therapist observes a patient struggling to maintain balance while walking on a compliant surface. Why does increased ankle joint stiffness reduce balance in this scenario?

💡 Explanation

Increased ankle stiffness limits the ability of the ankle joint to generate corrective torques in response to surface perturbations, because the mechanism of ankle strategy relies on modulating ankle torque for balance recovery; therefore balance decreases, rather than increasing due to other proprioceptive or neural adaptation mechanisms.

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