Citation

Shishov N, Gimmon Y, Rashed H, Kurz I, Riemer R, Shapiro A, Debi R, Melzer I. Gait Posture 2016; 52: 280-286.

Affiliation

Department of Physical Therapy, Faculty of Health Sciences, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer-Sheva, Israel. Electronic address: itzikm@bgu.ac.il.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2016, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/j.gaitpost.2016.12.004

PMID

28013150

Abstract

Specific patterns of pelvic and thorax motions are required to maintain stability during walking. This cross-sectional study explored older-adults' gait kinematics and their kinematic adaptations to different walking speeds, with the purpose of identifying mechanisms that might be related to increased risk for falls. Fifty-eight older adults from self-care residential facilities walked on a treadmill, whose velocity was systematically increased with increments of 0.1meters/second (m/s) from 0.5 to 0.9m/s, and then similarly decreased. Thorax, pelvis, trunk, arms, and legs angular total range of motion (tROM), stride time, stride length, and step width were measured. Twenty-one of the subjects reported falling, and 37 didn't fall. No significant effect of a fall history was found for any of the dependent variables. A marginally significant interaction effect of fall history and walking speed was found for arms' tROM (p=0.098). Speed had an effect on many of the measures for both groups. As the treadmill's velocity increased, the non-fallers increased their arm (15.9±8.6° to 26.6±12.7°) and trunk rotations (4.7±1.9° to 7.2±2.8°) tROM, whereas for the fallers the change of arm (14.7±14.8° to 20.8±13°) and trunk (5.5±2.9° to 7.3±2.3°) rotations tROM were moderate between the different walking speeds. We conclude that walking speed manipulation exposed different flexibility trends. Only non-fallers demonstrated the ability to adapt trunk and arm ROM to treadmill speed i.e., had a more flexible pattern of behavior for arm and trunk motions, supporting the upper-body's importance for stability while walking.

Copyright © 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Language: en