Lee Youngjae, Alexander Neil B, Franck Christopher T, Madigan Michael L
Grado Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, Virginia, United States of America.
Department of Internal Medicine, Division of Geriatric and Palliative Medicine, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States of America.
PLoS One. 2025 Jul 17;20(7):e0328621. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0328621. eCollection 2025.
The goal of this exploratory study was to compare sternum drop-the decrease in sternum height during an attempt to recover balance after tripping-between lab-induced trips and naturally occurring real-world trips. Twenty community-dwelling adults 71.8 (4.6) years old used three inertial measurement units (IMUs) and a wrist-worn voice recorder daily for three weeks to capture sternum drop during any naturally-occurring real-world trips. Participants then completed a single laboratory testing session during which they were intentionally exposed to two lab-induced trips while wearing the same IMUs to also evaluate sternum drop. All real-world trips resulted in recoveries while only 12 of the 22 lab-induced trips resulted in recoveries (the remaining 10 were falls). When including all lab-induced trips, sternum drop after real-world trips was 8.8 cm smaller (p < 0.001), exhibited less variance (p < 0.001), and was not associated with lab-induced trips (R2 = 0.005; p = 0.757). When only including lab-induced trips that resulted in recoveries, sternum drop after real-world trips did not differ from the lab (p = 0.163), exhibited less variance (p < 0.001) and was not associated with lab-induced trips (R2 = 0.006; p = 0.766). These results were likely dependent upon 1) our lab protocol that required participants to walk at a gait speed that was likely faster than typical gait speed in the real-world, and 2) the aggressive lab tripping obstacle height of 8.6 cm was likely taller than at least some real-world trips. While reducing gait speed and obstacle height in future laboratory studies may improve agreement with real-world trips, this would lower the physical demands during recovery and may not be as effective at revealing factors contributing to falls. Nevertheless, additional research appears warranted to clarify the linkage between lab and real-world trips. To our knowledge, this is the first study comparing tripping kinematics between the lab and real world.
这项探索性研究的目的是比较在绊倒后试图恢复平衡时胸骨下降情况，即实验室诱导绊倒和自然发生的现实世界绊倒过程中胸骨高度的降低。20名年龄为71.8（4.6）岁的社区居住成年人连续三周每天使用三个惯性测量单元（IMU）和一个腕戴式语音记录器，以捕捉任何自然发生的现实世界绊倒过程中的胸骨下降情况。参与者随后完成了一次实验室测试，在此期间，他们戴着相同的IMU故意经历两次实验室诱导绊倒，以评估胸骨下降情况。所有现实世界绊倒都实现了恢复，而22次实验室诱导绊倒中只有12次实现了恢复（其余10次是跌倒）。当纳入所有实验室诱导绊倒时，现实世界绊倒后的胸骨下降幅度小8.8厘米（p<0.001），方差更小（p<0.001），且与实验室诱导绊倒无关（R2=0.005；p=0.757）。当仅纳入导致恢复的实验室诱导绊倒时，现实世界绊倒后的胸骨下降与实验室情况无差异（p=0.163），方差更小（p<0.001），且与实验室诱导绊倒无关（R2=0.006；p=0.766）。这些结果可能取决于：1）我们的实验室方案要求参与者以可能比现实世界中典型步态速度更快的步态速度行走；2）实验室中具有攻击性的绊倒障碍物高度为8.6厘米，可能比至少一些现实世界绊倒中的障碍物更高。虽然在未来的实验室研究中降低步态速度和障碍物高度可能会提高与现实世界绊倒情况的一致性，但这会降低恢复过程中的身体需求，可能无法同样有效地揭示导致跌倒的因素。尽管如此，似乎仍有必要进行更多研究以阐明实验室和现实世界绊倒之间的联系。据我们所知，这是第一项比较实验室和现实世界绊倒运动学的研究。
