Analysis of the Relationships between Balance Ability and Walking in Terms of Muscle Activities and Lower Limb Kinematics and Kinetics
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
I enjoied reading this interesting and well written paper. The introduction was very clear and the discussion dealt throughly with all open issues including study limitations. Maybe the possible gender differences could be discussed as well, espcially since your sample was unbalanced.
I didi non uderstand only these two minor points:
1) LN177: and basic details of the participants (Error! Reference source not found.).
2) LN178: of the participants and physical activity information were analysed. 24 participants were 179 right side dominant and only 5 participants were left side dominant. Therefore, right side
LN 180: data was analysed further in this study.*
Why didn't you analyze the dominant ide for each subject?
Author Response
Dear Editor,
I have attached a summary table for the review comments.
Please kind enough to review and consider the article for publication.
Best regards,
Cinthuja
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
This study determined the level of association between balance ability in the Star Excursion Balance test and lower limb kinetics and kinematics during gait. While this topic is interesting, I have two main concern with this manuscript: 1) The Introduction does not adequately justify this research, especially why the SEBT would be a relevant balance test; 2) The Methods are missing relevant details about how this study was conducted.
INTRODUCTION
My overall impression about the Introduction is that there is a lot here and only some of it is relevant to this manuscript.
P1, L35
The first sentence of your introduction is grammatically incorrect. I recommend revising to make sure the point you are trying to make is clear to the reader.
P1, L39-40
The citation about OA is not connected to the other sentences in this paragraph. Furthermore, and this applies to rest of this paragraph, it seems odd that you choose to discuss OA in such length in this paragraph when the study is conducted in healthy participants.
P2, L60-66
How is this connected to your study or the rest of the Introduction?
P2, L78-83
This paragraph is relevant to your study but it needs to be strengthened. As a reader it is unclear to me why you think the Start Excursion Balance test is a good tool to measure balance in this population? And how did you end up with a hypothesis that the performance in this particular balance test would be associated with lower limb kinetics and kinematics?
METHODS
Please provide more details about the population you recruited. Inclusion and exclusion criteria? How many did you aim to recruit? When was this study conducted? Is it possible that some had OA? What about other issues contributing to reduced balance ability?
In addition, please outline your outcome measures clearly. Throughout the text the terms “gait kinematics and kinetics” are used but this is really vague. Please define these.
Also, for the first part of this manuscript balance ability seems to refer to the reach distance in the SEBT. But then CoM displacement in analysis, but it is never defined as an outcome measure. So they performed the SEBT on a force plate?
P3, L115
Is “… on a long 20 m walkway..” a correct way to describe this walkway?
P3, L116
How was dominant side determined?
P3, L131
Why “at least 3 trials”? Did some participants perform more than 3 trials? Were some trials determined to be unsuccessful?
P3, L132-133
All the information relevant to the gait analysis should be in the 1st paragraph.
How long were the rest intervals?
RESULTS
P5, L177
Check the error note.
Table 1
It would probably be more relevant to provide the leg measurements in cm for better accuracy. Or in mm, which is how you report the reach distance.
Table 2
It seems unnecessary to have the *** symbols in the table when you have added p values.
DISCUSSION
P9, L257-263
You performed a lot of analysis but only some results are discussed. For example, here I would like to see discussion about why BF (RMS) and MF (RMS) negatively influence the SEBT reach distance. What is the relevance of that?
Author Response
Dear Editor,
I have attached a summary table for the review comments.
Please kind enough to review and consider the article for publication.
Best regards,
Cinthuja
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
The authors have adequately addressed my comments.
