Bishnoi Alka, Hu Yang, Hernandez Manuel E
The College of Health Professions and Human Services, Department of Physical Therapy, Kean University, Union, NJ, United States.
Department of Kinesiology, College of Health and Human Sciences, San Jose State University, San Jose, CA, United States.
Front Aging Neurosci. 2025 Jun 13;17:1583447. doi: 10.3389/fnagi.2025.1583447. eCollection 2025.
Osteoarthritis (OA), a prevalent musculoskeletal condition, is associated with an increased risk of falls. Maintaining posture relies on visual, vestibular, and proprioceptive inputs, but these systems can be compromised due to aging or disease, heightening fall risk. Such impairments may result from neuromuscular decline and reduced cognitive or visuospatial processing abilities. This study aimed to investigate prefrontal cortical (PFC) activation patterns during clinical sensory organization tasks (SOT) using functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) in older women with OA and healthy controls (HOA). We hypothesized that PFC activation would increase as SOT conditions became more challenging, but that increases would be limited in OA, relative to HOA, given a decreased attentional capacity due to chronic pain.
A cross-sectional study was conducted with 10 women with OA (65.7 ± 3.01 years) and 11 HOA (66.0 ± 4.86 years). Baseline cognitive and motor assessments preceded three trials of six SOT conditions.
Significant differences between groups in BMI, WOMAC pain score, repeated chair stand, and TUG scores were found ( < 0.001). Linear mixed-model analysis revealed significant effects of condition (CND; < 0.001), trial (TR; < 0.0001), and interactions between CNDTR ( < 0.01) and CohortCND ( < 0.01) on PFC activation.
In conclusion, both groups demonstrated increased PFC activation with task difficulty. However, OA participants exhibited diminished capacity to recruit additional attentional resources compared to HOA, emphasizing the need for further research with larger cohorts to elucidate these findings.
骨关节炎（OA）是一种常见的肌肉骨骼疾病，与跌倒风险增加有关。维持姿势依赖于视觉、前庭和本体感觉输入，但这些系统可能因衰老或疾病而受损，从而增加跌倒风险。这种损伤可能是由于神经肌肉衰退以及认知或视觉空间处理能力下降所致。本研究旨在使用功能近红外光谱（fNIRS）研究患有OA的老年女性和健康对照者（HOA）在临床感觉组织任务（SOT）期间前额叶皮质（PFC）的激活模式。我们假设，随着SOT条件变得更具挑战性，PFC激活会增加，但由于慢性疼痛导致注意力容量下降，与HOA相比，OA患者的激活增加将受到限制。
对10名患有OA的女性（65.7±3.01岁）和11名HOA（66.0±4.86岁）进行了一项横断面研究。在进行六种SOT条件的三次试验之前，先进行了基线认知和运动评估。
发现两组在体重指数、WOMAC疼痛评分、重复起坐和定时起立步行测试得分方面存在显著差异（<0.001）。线性混合模型分析显示，条件（CND；<0.001）、试验（TR；<0.0001）以及CND与TR之间的相互作用（<0.01）和队列与CND之间的相互作用（<0.01）对PFC激活有显著影响。
总之，两组均显示随着任务难度增加PFC激活增加。然而，与HOA相比，OA参与者募集额外注意力资源的能力有所下降，这强调需要对更大的队列进行进一步研究以阐明这些发现。
