The Stability of Trunk and Limbs during Walking in the Middle-Aged and Elderly Adults

Walking outdoor or on a treadmill is a common activity for the middle-aged and elderly adults to improve one’s body fitness. Falls resulting from stability disturbance during walking has been an important issue. To monitor the dynamic stability of the trunk and limbs has not actually been documented for daily walking outdoor or on a treadmill. The purpose of this proposal is aimed to investigate the temporal and speed effect on the dynamic stability of trunk and limbs during walking on a treadmill (the first year), level ground in an outdoor environment (the second year), and with a walking aid (cane) in the 3rd year. This study is designed with repeated measures with two-factor ANOVA. In the first year, there will be sixty middle-aged and elderly adults (30 ones aged between 50 to 64years and 30 ones older than 65 years) recruited to participate this study and if one unable to complete the protocol by walking 20 minutes on the treadmill and the or unable to follow the instructions will be excluded from the this study. In the following year, the same protocol for the participants with the same criteria in the first years will be executed on the outdoor level ground with self-selected speed. In the final year, participants with the same criteria will walk with a cane installed with load cells in the same situations as the previous two years. On the trunk there are four pairs of electrodes and 3D accelerators on the right upper limb, the left lower limb, and the trunk for monitor dynamic stability during walking on the different ground situations. There are two walking speed (2,4 km/hr) randomized assigned for each 20- minute walking trial respectively within three weeks to be completed. The data will be collected at every 5 minutes. It will be a three-year project to assess the dynamic stability of the trunk and limbs on the various walking surface in the first two year, and in the third year it will see how a walking aid assist the dynamic stability of the trunk and limbs on the treadmill and level ground. This project will be expected to provide the middle-aged and elderly adults a temporal profile of dynamic stability of trunk and limbs under varied speed conditions and walking surface as a safe clinical guideline and provide a device for fall detection and prevention.

Project ID:PC9907-2517
External Project ID:NSC99-2410-H182-039