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Relating Reactive Stepping Characteristics to Falls in Older Community Dwelling Adults

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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…

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
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Pilot Study: Generalization of Improvements in Reactive Stepping Performance in Healthy

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…

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

The Romanticization of Mental Illness and Substance Abuse in Young Adult Media

Description

The following creative project defends that, whether intentionally or not, mental illness and substance abuse are inevitably romanticized in young adult media and discusses the dangers of this romanticization. This project is divided into three parts. The first part consists of psychological evaluations of the main characters of two popular,…

The following creative project defends that, whether intentionally or not, mental illness and substance abuse are inevitably romanticized in young adult media and discusses the dangers of this romanticization. This project is divided into three parts. The first part consists of psychological evaluations of the main characters of two popular, contemporary forms of young adult media, Catcher in the Rye by J.D Salinger and Euphoria by Sam Levinson. These evaluations use textual evidence and the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-5) to determine what symptoms of psychopathology the characters appear to display. The second part consists of a self-written short story that is meant to accurately depict the life of a young adult struggling with mental illness and substance abuse. This story contains various aesthetic techniques borrowed from the two young adult media forms. The final part consists of an aesthetic statement which discusses in depth the aesthetic techniques employed within the short story, Quicksand by Anisha Mehra.
ContributorsMehra, Anisha (Author) / Cryer, Michael (Thesis director) / Cavanaugh Toft, Carolyn (Committee member) / Department of Psychology (Contributor) / Dean, The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2021-05
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Breakdown and classification of skill transfer type between a hockey slap shot and golf drive

Description

There is surprisingly little scientific literature describing whether a hockey slap shot positively or negatively transfers to a driving golf swing. Golf and hockey use a similar kinematic sequence to send the ball / puck towards a target, but does that directly translate to positive skill transfer between the two…

There is surprisingly little scientific literature describing whether a hockey slap shot positively or negatively transfers to a driving golf swing. Golf and hockey use a similar kinematic sequence to send the ball / puck towards a target, but does that directly translate to positive skill transfer between the two sports, or are there other important factors that could result in a negative skill transfer? The aim of this study is to look further into the two kinematic sequences and determine their intertask skill transfer type. A field experiment was conducted, following a specific research design, in order to compare performance between two groups, one being familiar with the skill that may transfer (hockey slapshot) and the other group being unfamiliar. Both groups had no experience in the skill being tested (driving golf swing) and various data was collected as all of the subjects performed 10 golf swings. The results of the data analysis showed that the group with experience in hockey had a higher variability of ball distance and ball speed. There are many factors of a hockey slapshot that are likely to develop a negative intertask skill transfer, resulting in this group's high inconsistency when performing a golf swing. On the other hand, the group with hockey experience also had higher mean club speed, showing that some aspects of the hockey slapshot resulted in a positive skill transfer, aiding their ability to perform a golf swing.
ContributorsLarson, Finn Althea (Author) / Peterson, Daniel (Thesis director) / Cryer, Michael (Committee member) / Materials Science and Engineering Program (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2021-05