School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, Blk N3, North Spine, Nanyang Avenue, Singapore 639798, Singapore.
School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, Blk N3, North Spine, Nanyang Avenue, Singapore 639798, Singapore.
J Biomech. 2014 Jan 3;47(1):59-64. doi: 10.1016/j.jbiomech.2013.10.010. Epub 2013 Oct 19.
The objective of the present study was to investigate the effects of multi-joint muscular fatigue on biomechanics of slips. Both lower-limb fatigue and upper-limb fatigue were examined, and the fatiguing exercises involved multi-joint movements to replicate muscular fatigue in realistic scenarios. Sixty healthy young adults participated in the study, and were evenly categorized into three groups: no fatigue, lower-limb fatigue, and upper-limb fatigue. These participants were instructed to walk on a linear walkway, and slips were induced unexpectedly during walking. The results showed that multi-joint muscular fatigue affects biomechanics of slips in all three phases of slips (i.e. initiation, detection, and recovery). In particular, adaptive safer postural control strategies were adopted with the application of both lower-limb fatigue and upper-limb fatigue to maintain the likelihood of slip initiation as in the no fatigue condition. In the phases of detection and recovery, lower-limb fatigue was found to compromise biomechanics of slips while upper-limb fatigue did not show any effects. Based on these findings, minimizing exposures to lower-limb fatigue should be given higher priority compared to upper-limb fatigue when developing interventions to prevent slip-induced falls. In addition, these findings also suggest that interventions aimed at enhancing proprioceptive acuity and increasing muscular strength in the lower limb could also be effective in slip-induced fall prevention.
本研究旨在探讨多关节肌肉疲劳对滑倒生物力学的影响。分别检查了下肢疲劳和上肢疲劳，疲劳运动涉及多关节运动，以模拟现实场景中的肌肉疲劳。60 名健康的年轻成年人参与了这项研究，并被平均分为三组：无疲劳、下肢疲劳和上肢疲劳。这些参与者被要求在直线步道上行走，并在行走过程中意外地引发滑倒。结果表明，多关节肌肉疲劳会影响滑倒的生物力学，包括滑倒的三个阶段（即起始、检测和恢复）。特别是，当应用下肢疲劳和上肢疲劳时，会采用适应性更强的安全姿势控制策略，以维持与无疲劳条件下相同的滑倒起始可能性。在检测和恢复阶段，下肢疲劳会影响滑倒的生物力学，而上肢疲劳则没有影响。基于这些发现，与上肢疲劳相比，在开发预防滑倒引起的跌倒的干预措施时，应更加优先考虑减少下肢疲劳的暴露。此外，这些发现还表明，旨在增强本体感觉敏锐度和增加下肢肌肉力量的干预措施也可能对预防滑倒引起的跌倒有效。
