Theses and Dissertations
This collection includes both ASU Theses and Dissertations, submitted by graduate students, and the Barrett, Honors College theses submitted by undergraduate students.
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- All Subjects: Falls
- Creators: School of Nutrition and Health Promotion
Description
Background: Falls are a leading cause of injury in older adults with roughly 1 in 4 American's over the age of 65 experiencing a fall. Research that looks at reactive stepping, or the steps a person takes when they encounter a loss of balance, is sparse. Whether a specific aspect of reactive stepping can be linked to falls has yet to be determined. Purpose: The purpose of this study was to determine which reactive stepping characteristics may be correlated with falls in from community dwelling older adults. Methods: 54 older adults (11 fallers & 43 non-fallers) underwent 3 "postural perturbations", in which they leaned back into the testers hands and were released, resulting in one or more reactive steps. Inertial sensors (APDM, inc.) were used to measure participant movement and Quantify reactive steps. Step length and step latency, which is the time it takes for an individual to perform a step, were the primary outcomes measured, along with time to stabilization, number of steps taken, and time until first foot strike. Results: Neither step length or step latency were significantly different in fallers compared to non-fallers (p=0.537 and p=0.431, respectively). However, four square step test was significantly different between the populations (p= 0.045). Conclusions: These results showed that four square step test may be more closely related to falls than step length or latency. When performing fall prevention training, or working with an individual at risk for falling, it may be more beneficial to focus on four square step test and the changes in direction associated with it, as opposed to other stepping characteristics in order to improve their fall risk.
ContributorsPreschler, Rachael (Author) / Peterson, Daniel (Thesis director) / Schaefer, Sydney (Committee member) / School of Nutrition and Health Promotion (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-05
Description
According to the Center for Disease Control, 1 in every 3 individuals will fall in their lifetime. Treadmill perturbation training has been a beneficial tool to increase reactive postural control and decrease the amount of falls. This study looked at the extent of the training effects on 29 healthy young adults to evaluate if stepping improvements in one direction could generalize to improvements in the quality of stepping in other directions. Outcome variables of Margin of Stability (MOS), step length, and step latency were evaluated for all 15 participants trained with forward perturbations and 14 participants trained with backward perturbations. From the paired t-tests, there were limited significant improvements in stepping with regards to motor learning and generalization. The only significant outcome was an increase in step length for the participants who trained in the backward direction (p=0.014; p<0.05). However, this significant increase in step length for this backward group did not generalize when the participants stepped in the forward direction post training. From the correlation tests, there was a significant, moderate correlation between motor learning and generalization (rho =0.527, p= 0.043; p<0.05), thus suggesting there may be a relationship between the amount of learning and the amount of generalization observed. Further evaluation of the second step and the foot motion during stepping may reveal more information and explain the changes in stepping to describe how healthy young adults were able to regain balance with each perturbation given.
ContributorsNowak, Rachael Teresa (Author) / Peterson, Daniel (Thesis director) / Dounskaia, Natalia (Committee member) / School of Nutrition and Health Promotion (Contributor, Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-12