Marigold Daniel S, Patla Aftab E
Département de Physiologie, Université de Montréal, Montréal, Québec, Canada.
Gait Posture. 2008 May;27(4):689-96. doi: 10.1016/j.gaitpost.2007.09.005. Epub 2007 Oct 24.
The main purpose of this study was to determine the effects of aging on the variability of gait over multi-surface terrain. An additional aim was to compare this variability to walking on solid ground. Ten young adults and 10 older adults walked along a walkway which contained a middle portion with multi-surface terrain. This multi-surface terrain consisted of solid, compliant, rocky, irregular, slippery, and uneven surfaces. We examined the effects of the multi-surface terrain and age on measures of variability including step length, step width, trunk pitch and roll, trunk centre of mass (tCOM) acceleration, and head acceleration. Step, trunk, and head variability were increased on the multi-surface terrain as compared to solid ground for both young and older adults (p<0.05). Older adults demonstrated larger medial-lateral tCOM acceleration RMS (p=0.0004) and trunk roll RMS (p=0.0001) when walking on the multi-surface terrain. In addition, older adults also walked more slowly (p=0.002) and took shorter steps (p=0.003). However, there were no age-related differences in step variability. The results suggest that multi-surface terrain poses a greater challenge to balance reflected by the increased variability, particularly in older adults.
本研究的主要目的是确定衰老对多表面地形上步态变异性的影响。另一个目的是将这种变异性与在坚实地面上行走进行比较。10名年轻成年人和10名老年人沿着一条人行道行走，该人行道中间部分为多表面地形。这种多表面地形由坚实、柔顺、崎岖、不规则、滑溜和不平的表面组成。我们研究了多表面地形和年龄对包括步长、步宽、躯干俯仰和侧倾、躯干质心（tCOM）加速度以及头部加速度等变异性测量指标的影响。与坚实地面相比，年轻和老年成年人在多表面地形上的步、躯干和头部变异性均增加（p<0.05）。老年人在多表面地形上行走时，其tCOM加速度均方根（RMS）的内侧-外侧方向（p=0.0004）和躯干侧倾RMS（p=0.0001）更大。此外，老年人行走速度也更慢（p=0.002）且步幅更短（p=0.003）。然而，步变异性方面不存在与年龄相关的差异。结果表明，多表面地形对平衡构成了更大挑战，这体现在变异性增加上，尤其是在老年人中。
