Standing postural instability in patients with schizophrenia: Relationships with psychiatric symptoms, anxiety, and the use of neuroleptic medications

- Postural stability in schizophrenia was measured with a pressure-sensitive platform.
- Schizophrenia patients showed greater overall postural instability than controls.
- Unlike in healthy controls, anxiety exacerbated postural instability in patients.

The purpose of this study was to assess postural instability in patients with schizophrenia using a pressure-sensitive platform and to examine the effects of anxiety, psychiatric symptoms, and the use of neuroleptic medications on postural sway. Participants were 23 patients with schizophrenia and 23 healthy controls. We found that the patients showed greater overall postural instability than the controls. Furthermore, they demonstrated greater instability when the test was performed with the eyes closed than with the eyes open. However, removal of visual input had less impact on the indices of postural instability in the patients than in the controls, suggesting that schizophrenia is associated with difficulties in integrating visual information and proprioceptive signals. Furthermore, in contrast to the controls, anxiety exacerbated postural instability in the patients. There were significant associations between postural stability and psychiatric symptoms in the patients without extrapyramidal symptoms, whereas medication dose did not significantly correlate with postural stability.