Rosso, Andrea and Torres-Oviedo, Gelsy and Weinstein, Andrea
(2020)
Locomotor Adaptability for Community Mobility of Older Adults: The Role of Gait Automaticity.
In: Pitt Momentum Fund 2020, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pa.
(Unpublished)
Abstract
"Restrictions in community mobility, the ability to move outside of one’s home, are common in older adults and contribute to disability, institutionalization, and poor quality of life. Successful community mobility requires the brain to quickly use information from the environment (e.g. surface quality, distances) to appropriately adapt gait to the current situation. This locomotor adaptation can be induced in the laboratory by having an individual walk on a split belt treadmill on which each leg is moving at a separate speed. Repeated exposure to split belt walking improves the rate of adaptation to this new environment. The brain mechanisms of this adaptation are unknown in healthy older individuals. The impact of locomotor adaptability on mobility and fall risk are also unknown. Our central hypothesis is that the ability to improve locomotor adaptability with repeated exposure is greater in those with better brain integrity, specifically the integrity of subcortical-prefrontal connections that contribute to the automaticity of walking.
We will test whether: Brain integrity, measured by neuropsychological test battery and brain function during walking tasks, is related to locomotor adaptability. Better brain integrity predicts greater improvements in locomotor adaptability with repeated exposure. Improvements in locomotor adaptability are related to clinical measures of mobility and fall risk."
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