ObjectiveTo compare gait variability among older community-dwellers with and without fear of falling and history of falls, and 2) to examine the association between gait variability and fear of falling while taking into account the effect of potential confounders.MethodsBased on a cross-sectional design, 1,023 French community-dwellers (mean age ± SD, 70.5 ± 5.0 years; 50.7% women) were included in this study. The primary endpoints were fear of falling, stride-to-stride variability of stride time and walking speed measured using GAITRite® system. Age, gender, history of falls, number of drugs daily taken per day, body mass index, lower-limb proprioception, visual acuity, use of psychoactive drugs and cognitive impairment were used as covariables in the statistical analysis. P-values less than 0.05 were considered as statistically significant.ResultsA total of 60.5% (n = 619) participants were non-fallers without fear of falling, 19% (n = 194) fallers without fear of falling, 9.9% (n = 101) non-fallers with fear of falling, and 10.7% (n = 109) fallers with fear of falling. Stride-to-stride variability of stride time was significantly higher in fallers with fear of falling compared to non-fallers without fear of falling. Full adjusted linear regression models showed that only lower walking speed value was associated to an increase in stride-to-stride variability of stride time and not fear of falling, falls or their combination. While using a walking speed ≥1.14 m/s (i.e., level of walking speed that did not influence stride-to-stride variability of stride time), age and combination of fear of falling with history of previous falls were significantly associated with an increased stride-to-stride variability of stride time.ConclusionsThe findings show that the combination of fear of falling with falls increased stride-to-stride variability of stride time. However, the effect of this combination depended on the level of walking speed, increase in stride-to-stride variability of stride time at lower walking speed being related to a biomechanical effect overriding fear of falling-related effects.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/1743-0003-11-128) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
Prayer is considered to be the most common therapy used in alternative medicine. This study aimed to explore the effect of prayers on endogenous pain modulation, pain intensity, and sensitivity in healthy religious participants. A total of 208 healthy religious participants were enrolled in this study and randomly distributed into two groups, a prayer group (
n
= 156) and a poem reading or control group (
n
= 52). Participants from the prayer group were then selectively allocated using the prayer function scale to either an active prayer group (
n
= 94) receiving an active type of praying or to a passive prayer group (
n
= 62) receiving a passive type of praying. Pain assessments were performed before and following the interventions and included pressure pain threshold assessment (PPT), conditioned pain modulation (CPM), and a numerical pain rating scale. A significant group-by-time interaction for PPT (
p
= 0.014) indicated post-intervention increases in PPT in the prayer group but not in the poem reading control group. Participants experienced a decrease in CPM efficacy (
p
= 0.030) and a reduction in their NPRS (
p
< 0.001) following the interventions, independent of their group allocation. The results showed that prayer, irrespective of the type, can positively affect pain sensitivity and intensity, but does not influence endogenous pain inhibition during hot water immersion. Future research should focus on understanding the mechanism behind “prayer-induced analgesia.”
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.