History of falls alters movement smoothness and time taken to complete a functional mobility task in the oldest-old: A case-control study

Figueiredo, Anelise Ineu; Balbinot, Gustavo; Brauner, Fabiane Oliveira; Schiavo, Aniuska; Urbanetto, Matheus De Souza; Mestriner, Régis Gemerasca

doi:10.1016/j.exger.2022.111918

Cited by 2 publications

(4 citation statements)

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“…The two studies that analyzed gait smoothness-a quality that reflects the continuousness or non-intermittency of walking [68,99]-found different results, i.e., one study reported that gait smoothness was associated with the number of falls [68], while the other did not find differences between fallers and non-fallers [99].…”

Section: Gait Symmetry and Gait Smoothnessmentioning

confidence: 99%

Gait Biomechanical Parameters Related to Falls in the Elderly: A Systematic Review

Silva,

Atalaia,

Abrantes

et al. 2024

Biomechanics

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According to the World Health Organization, one-third of elderly people aged 65 or over fall annually, and this number increases after 70. Several gait biomechanical parameters were associated with a history of falls. This study aimed to conduct a systematic review to identify and describe the gait biomechanical parameters related to falls in the elderly. MEDLINE Complete, Cochrane, Web of Science, and CINAHL Complete were searched for articles on 22 November 2023, using the following search sentence: (gait) AND (fall*) AND ((elder*) OR (old*) OR (senior*)) AND ((kinematic*) OR (kinetic*) OR (biomechanic*) OR (electromyogram*) OR (emg) OR (motion analysis*) OR (plantar pressure)). This search identified 13,988 studies. From these, 96 were selected. Gait speed, stride/step length, and double support phase are gait biomechanical parameters that differentiate fallers from non-fallers. Fallers also tended to exhibit higher variability in gait biomechanical parameters, namely the minimum foot/toe clearance variability. Although the studies were scarce, differences between fallers and non-fallers were found regarding lower limb muscular activity and joint biomechanics. Due to the scarce literature and contradictory results among studies, it is complex to draw clear conclusions for parameters related to postural stability. Minimum foot/toe clearance, step width, and knee kinematics did not differentiate fallers from non-fallers.

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Section: Gait Symmetry and Gait Smoothnessmentioning

confidence: 99%

Gait Biomechanical Parameters Related to Falls in the Elderly: A Systematic Review

Silva,

Atalaia,

Abrantes

et al. 2024

Biomechanics

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“…Smoothness metrics should possess dimensionless attributes, ensuring independence from movement amplitude and duration while demonstrating a consistent response within the physiological range [13]. Several metrics have been proposed to evaluate gait smoothness, including jerk-based measures such as jerk peak inflections [8], jerk root mean square (RMS) [14], log dimensionless jerk (LDLJ) [11,15,16] or the estimation of movement's frequency spectrum like the harmonic ratio (HR) [2,3,11,17] and spectral arc length (SPARC) [9,10,18,19]. The latter, proposed by Balasubramanian et al [13], is claimed as reliable, independent from duration and amplitude and not influenced by noise and hence able to outstand other existing metrics that were not robust enough.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Garcia et al applied SPARC to the gait velocity patterns in the three directions of post-stroke and control groups, obtaining controversial results [20]. SPARC was utilized also in two studies realized by Figueiredo et al on trunk accelerations and angular velocities and also by Zucchelli et al on acceleration RMS to describe walking smoothness exhibited by elderly persons with and without a history of falling, with the aim of investigating a possible fall prevention strategy, since smoothness worsening had been detected [18,19,21]. With regard to aging, the HR metric has been applied to trunk accelerations in three directions to assess gait smoothness, particularly focusing on stability, involving an elderly population with cognitive impairment [2], healthy children and adolescents [17], as well as healthy young and elderly subjects [3].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For example, a single unit placed on the lumbar zone has been used to investigate gait speed sensitivity [24] and evaluate spatiotemporal parameters and COM kinematics [2]. Several clinical research studies computed, through an IMU positioned on the lumbar zone, SPARC on both linear accelerations and angular velocities across the three directions (anteroposterior, AP; mediolateral, ML; and vertical, V) [9,10,21] or on angular velocities [18,20]. In addition, Pau's and Leban's research groups applied HR to linear accelerations in two different populations (elderly and children) to investigate the correlation of smoothness with cognitive impairment in the former case and to characterize gait development during childhood and early adolescence in the latter [2,17].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Comparison of Gait Smoothness Metrics in Healthy Elderly and Young People

Antonelli,

Caselli,

Gastaldi

2024

Applied Sciences

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The goal of this study is to compare gait smoothness using different metrics. Methodologically, harmonic ratio (HR), spectral arc length (SPARC) and log dimensionless jerk (LDLJ) metrics were applied to acceleration and angular velocity data collected during gait using a wearable inertial sensor placed on the trunk. Sixteen healthy elderly (68.3 ± 4.4 years) and sixteen young (22.6 ± 1.1 years) participants volunteered for the analysis. They were requested to walk at self-selected normal and fast velocities. The results obtained with the three metrics showed variations in smoothness within and between groups. Notably, the older group exhibited contradictory smoothness trends compared to prior studies, presenting a smoother gait than the younger cohort, except for specific directional accelerations. Contradictory outcomes arose between metrics, challenging the influence of age on gait smoothness. Despite concerns about LDLJ’s susceptibility to disturbances, it emerged as the most robust metric. Conversely, HR exhibited alignment with the existing literature on specific acceleration directions. The differences observed in gait smoothness between the two age groups while walking at different speeds suggest that pace might affect smoothness evaluation. The study posits that aging may have a less pronounced impact on gait smoothness compared to cognitive impairment, implying potential clinical utility in discerning age-related gait changes. These findings highlighted the importance of a comprehensive approach to estimating gait smoothness, integrating different metrics and considering several walking speeds, crucial for understanding age-related gait alterations and their clinical implications.

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History of falls alters movement smoothness and time taken to complete a functional mobility task in the oldest-old: A case-control study

Cited by 2 publications

References 42 publications

Gait Biomechanical Parameters Related to Falls in the Elderly: A Systematic Review

Gait Biomechanical Parameters Related to Falls in the Elderly: A Systematic Review

Comparison of Gait Smoothness Metrics in Healthy Elderly and Young People

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