Somporn Sungkarat, Department of Physical Therapy, Faculty of Associated Medical Sciences, Chiang Mai University, Chiang Mai, Thailand, 50200; E-mail address:
J Nutr Health Aging. 2019;23(7):665-668. doi: 10.1007/s12603-019-1211-0.
Compliant flooring while providing the impact force attenuation in the event of falls, its low stiffness characteristic might impair balance and gait which consequently resulted in an increase in the risk of falling.
To investigate the effects of compliant flooring on dynamic balance and gait performance of older adults under challenging conditions.
A cross-sectional designed with repeated measured. Thirty five community-dwelling older adults (mean age 74.91 ± 6.51 yrs) participated in this study.
Modified Dynamic Gait Index (mDGI) and Timed Up and Go (TUG) were used to assess dynamic balance. Spatio-temporal gait parameters were measured under comfortable and maximal speed. All tests were administered on the vinyl and compliant flooring in random order.
The time taken to complete TUG and the mDGI scores were similar between the two flooring types (p ≥ 0.05). Overall, gait characteristics were comparable when walking on the compliant and vinyl flooring for both speeds except for swing time, step time, and cadence.
The present study demonstrated that compliant flooring did not significantly affect dynamic balance and had minimal effects on gait characteristics. The compliant flooring appears to be safe for installing in self-ambulating older adult's home.
弹性地板在发生跌倒时能提供冲击力衰减，但它的低刚性特性可能会损害平衡和步态，从而增加跌倒的风险。
研究弹性地板对老年人在挑战性条件下动态平衡和步态性能的影响。
一项具有重复测量的横断面设计。35 名居住在社区的老年人（平均年龄 74.91 ± 6.51 岁）参加了这项研究。
改良动态步态指数（mDGI）和计时起立行走（TUG）用于评估动态平衡。在舒适和最大速度下测量时空步态参数。所有测试均在随机顺序下在乙烯基和弹性地板上进行。
在两种地板类型之间，完成 TUG 和 mDGI 评分的时间相似（p≥0.05）。总体而言，在两种速度下，在弹性和乙烯基地板上行走时的步态特征相似，除了摆动时间、步幅时间和步频。
本研究表明，弹性地板不会显著影响动态平衡，对步态特征的影响很小。弹性地板似乎可以安全地安装在自行活动的老年人的家中。
