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Adaptability to Balance Perturbations During Walking as a Potential Marker of Falls History in Older Adults

Given that falls most commonly occur during walking due to unexpected balance perturbations like trips and slips, walking-based balance assessment including walking stability and adaptability to such perturbations could be beneficial for fall risk assessment in older adults. This cross-sectional stu...

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Autores principales: Gerards, Marissa H. G., Meijer, Kenneth, Karamanidis, Kiros, Grevendonk, Lotte, Hoeks, Joris, Lenssen, Antoine F., McCrum, Christopher
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8169998/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34095828
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fspor.2021.682861
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author Gerards, Marissa H. G.
Meijer, Kenneth
Karamanidis, Kiros
Grevendonk, Lotte
Hoeks, Joris
Lenssen, Antoine F.
McCrum, Christopher
author_facet Gerards, Marissa H. G.
Meijer, Kenneth
Karamanidis, Kiros
Grevendonk, Lotte
Hoeks, Joris
Lenssen, Antoine F.
McCrum, Christopher
author_sort Gerards, Marissa H. G.
collection PubMed
description Given that falls most commonly occur during walking due to unexpected balance perturbations like trips and slips, walking-based balance assessment including walking stability and adaptability to such perturbations could be beneficial for fall risk assessment in older adults. This cross-sectional study reanalyzed data from two larger studies conducted with the same walking protocol. Participants completed unperturbed walking trials at speeds of 0.4 m/s up to 1.8 m/s in 0.2 m/s steps. Ten unannounced treadmill belt acceleration perturbations were then applied while participants walked at equivalent stability, assessed using the margins of stability. Retrospective (12 months) falls incidence was collected to divide participants into people with and without a history of falls. Twenty older adults (mean age 70.2 ± 2.9 years) were included in this analysis; eight people with one or more recent falls and 12 people without, closely matched by sex, age and height. No significant differences were found in unperturbed walking parameters or their variability. Overall perturbation-recovery step behavior differed slightly (not statistically significant) between the groups after the first perturbation and differences became more pronounced and significant after repetition of perturbations. The No-Falls group significantly reduced the number of recovery steps needed across the trials, whereas the Falls group did not show these improvements. People with a previous fall tended to have slightly delayed and more variable recovery responses after perturbation compared to non-fallers. Non-fallers demonstrate more signs of adaptability to repeated perturbations. Adaptability may give a broader indication of the ability of the locomotor system to respond and improve responses to sudden walking perturbations than unperturbed walking variability or recovery to a single novel perturbation. Adaptability may thus be a more useful marker of falls history in older adults and should be considered in further research.
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spelling pubmed-81699982021-06-03 Adaptability to Balance Perturbations During Walking as a Potential Marker of Falls History in Older Adults Gerards, Marissa H. G. Meijer, Kenneth Karamanidis, Kiros Grevendonk, Lotte Hoeks, Joris Lenssen, Antoine F. McCrum, Christopher Front Sports Act Living Sports and Active Living Given that falls most commonly occur during walking due to unexpected balance perturbations like trips and slips, walking-based balance assessment including walking stability and adaptability to such perturbations could be beneficial for fall risk assessment in older adults. This cross-sectional study reanalyzed data from two larger studies conducted with the same walking protocol. Participants completed unperturbed walking trials at speeds of 0.4 m/s up to 1.8 m/s in 0.2 m/s steps. Ten unannounced treadmill belt acceleration perturbations were then applied while participants walked at equivalent stability, assessed using the margins of stability. Retrospective (12 months) falls incidence was collected to divide participants into people with and without a history of falls. Twenty older adults (mean age 70.2 ± 2.9 years) were included in this analysis; eight people with one or more recent falls and 12 people without, closely matched by sex, age and height. No significant differences were found in unperturbed walking parameters or their variability. Overall perturbation-recovery step behavior differed slightly (not statistically significant) between the groups after the first perturbation and differences became more pronounced and significant after repetition of perturbations. The No-Falls group significantly reduced the number of recovery steps needed across the trials, whereas the Falls group did not show these improvements. People with a previous fall tended to have slightly delayed and more variable recovery responses after perturbation compared to non-fallers. Non-fallers demonstrate more signs of adaptability to repeated perturbations. Adaptability may give a broader indication of the ability of the locomotor system to respond and improve responses to sudden walking perturbations than unperturbed walking variability or recovery to a single novel perturbation. Adaptability may thus be a more useful marker of falls history in older adults and should be considered in further research. Frontiers Media S.A. 2021-05-19 /pmc/articles/PMC8169998/ /pubmed/34095828 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fspor.2021.682861 Text en Copyright © 2021 Gerards, Meijer, Karamanidis, Grevendonk, Hoeks, Lenssen and McCrum. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Sports and Active Living
Gerards, Marissa H. G.
Meijer, Kenneth
Karamanidis, Kiros
Grevendonk, Lotte
Hoeks, Joris
Lenssen, Antoine F.
McCrum, Christopher
Adaptability to Balance Perturbations During Walking as a Potential Marker of Falls History in Older Adults
title Adaptability to Balance Perturbations During Walking as a Potential Marker of Falls History in Older Adults
title_full Adaptability to Balance Perturbations During Walking as a Potential Marker of Falls History in Older Adults
title_fullStr Adaptability to Balance Perturbations During Walking as a Potential Marker of Falls History in Older Adults
title_full_unstemmed Adaptability to Balance Perturbations During Walking as a Potential Marker of Falls History in Older Adults
title_short Adaptability to Balance Perturbations During Walking as a Potential Marker of Falls History in Older Adults
title_sort adaptability to balance perturbations during walking as a potential marker of falls history in older adults
topic Sports and Active Living
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8169998/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34095828
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fspor.2021.682861
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