Cargando…

Conscious Movement Processing, Fall-Related Anxiety, and the Visuomotor Control of Locomotion in Older Adults

OBJECTIVES: Older adults anxious about falling will often consciously process walking movements in an attempt to avoid falling. They also fixate their gaze on the present step rather than looking ahead to plan future actions. The present work examined whether conscious movement strategies result in...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Ellmers, Toby J, Cocks, Adam J, Kal, Elmar C, Young, William R
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Oxford University Press 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7566972/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32761087
http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/geronb/gbaa081
_version_ 1783596227767566336
author Ellmers, Toby J
Cocks, Adam J
Kal, Elmar C
Young, William R
author_facet Ellmers, Toby J
Cocks, Adam J
Kal, Elmar C
Young, William R
author_sort Ellmers, Toby J
collection PubMed
description OBJECTIVES: Older adults anxious about falling will often consciously process walking movements in an attempt to avoid falling. They also fixate their gaze on the present step rather than looking ahead to plan future actions. The present work examined whether conscious movement strategies result in such restricted visual planning. METHODS: A total of 18 community-dwelling older adults (age(mean) = 71.22; SD = 5.75) walked along a path and stepped into two raised targets. Repeated-measures analyses of variance were used to compare gaze behavior and movement kinematics when participants walked: (a) at baseline (ground level); (b) under conditions designed to induce fall-related anxiety (walkway elevated 0.6 m); and (c) in the absence of anxiety (ground level), but with explicit instructions to consciously process movements. RESULTS: Participants reported increased conscious movement processing when walking both on the elevated walkway (fall-related anxiety condition) and at ground level when instructed to consciously process gait. During both conditions, participants altered their gaze behavior, visually prioritizing the immediate walkway 1–2 steps ahead (areas needed for the on-line visual control of individual steps) at the expense of previewing distal areas of the walking path required to plan future steps. These alterations were accompanied by significantly slower gait and increased stance durations prior to target steps. CONCLUSIONS: Consciously processing movement (in the relative absence of anxiety) resulted in gaze behavior comparable to that observed during conditions of fall-related anxiety. As anxious participants also self-reported directing greater attention toward movement, this suggests that fall-related anxiety may disrupt the visual control of gait through increased conscious movement processing.
format Online
Article
Text
id pubmed-7566972
institution National Center for Biotechnology Information
language English
publishDate 2020
publisher Oxford University Press
record_format MEDLINE/PubMed
spelling pubmed-75669722020-10-21 Conscious Movement Processing, Fall-Related Anxiety, and the Visuomotor Control of Locomotion in Older Adults Ellmers, Toby J Cocks, Adam J Kal, Elmar C Young, William R J Gerontol B Psychol Sci Soc Sci The Journal of Gerontology: Psychological Sciences OBJECTIVES: Older adults anxious about falling will often consciously process walking movements in an attempt to avoid falling. They also fixate their gaze on the present step rather than looking ahead to plan future actions. The present work examined whether conscious movement strategies result in such restricted visual planning. METHODS: A total of 18 community-dwelling older adults (age(mean) = 71.22; SD = 5.75) walked along a path and stepped into two raised targets. Repeated-measures analyses of variance were used to compare gaze behavior and movement kinematics when participants walked: (a) at baseline (ground level); (b) under conditions designed to induce fall-related anxiety (walkway elevated 0.6 m); and (c) in the absence of anxiety (ground level), but with explicit instructions to consciously process movements. RESULTS: Participants reported increased conscious movement processing when walking both on the elevated walkway (fall-related anxiety condition) and at ground level when instructed to consciously process gait. During both conditions, participants altered their gaze behavior, visually prioritizing the immediate walkway 1–2 steps ahead (areas needed for the on-line visual control of individual steps) at the expense of previewing distal areas of the walking path required to plan future steps. These alterations were accompanied by significantly slower gait and increased stance durations prior to target steps. CONCLUSIONS: Consciously processing movement (in the relative absence of anxiety) resulted in gaze behavior comparable to that observed during conditions of fall-related anxiety. As anxious participants also self-reported directing greater attention toward movement, this suggests that fall-related anxiety may disrupt the visual control of gait through increased conscious movement processing. Oxford University Press 2020-08-06 /pmc/articles/PMC7566972/ /pubmed/32761087 http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/geronb/gbaa081 Text en © The Author(s) 2020. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Gerontological Society of America. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle The Journal of Gerontology: Psychological Sciences
Ellmers, Toby J
Cocks, Adam J
Kal, Elmar C
Young, William R
Conscious Movement Processing, Fall-Related Anxiety, and the Visuomotor Control of Locomotion in Older Adults
title Conscious Movement Processing, Fall-Related Anxiety, and the Visuomotor Control of Locomotion in Older Adults
title_full Conscious Movement Processing, Fall-Related Anxiety, and the Visuomotor Control of Locomotion in Older Adults
title_fullStr Conscious Movement Processing, Fall-Related Anxiety, and the Visuomotor Control of Locomotion in Older Adults
title_full_unstemmed Conscious Movement Processing, Fall-Related Anxiety, and the Visuomotor Control of Locomotion in Older Adults
title_short Conscious Movement Processing, Fall-Related Anxiety, and the Visuomotor Control of Locomotion in Older Adults
title_sort conscious movement processing, fall-related anxiety, and the visuomotor control of locomotion in older adults
topic The Journal of Gerontology: Psychological Sciences
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7566972/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32761087
http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/geronb/gbaa081
work_keys_str_mv AT ellmerstobyj consciousmovementprocessingfallrelatedanxietyandthevisuomotorcontroloflocomotioninolderadults
AT cocksadamj consciousmovementprocessingfallrelatedanxietyandthevisuomotorcontroloflocomotioninolderadults
AT kalelmarc consciousmovementprocessingfallrelatedanxietyandthevisuomotorcontroloflocomotioninolderadults
AT youngwilliamr consciousmovementprocessingfallrelatedanxietyandthevisuomotorcontroloflocomotioninolderadults