Active — Not RecruitingNot Applicable

Aging and Mixed Perturbation Training to Reduce Falls in Locomotion

United States600 participantsStarted 2017-08-01

Plain-language summary

The long-term objective of this research is to develop an efficacious training paradigm to enhance older adults' defense mechanisms against falls and possibility reduce healthcare cost. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates the direct medical cost for fall related injuries to be $30 billion annually. Slips and trips combined account for more than 50% of the outdoor falls in community-dwelling older adults. These environmental perturbations are opposing in nature, with slips mainly resulting in backward falls and trips in forward falls. This project explores perturbation training through both slip and trip exposure based on the principles of motor learning. The project design consists of a randomized controlled trial to examine the ability of the central nervous system to mitigate the interference in stability control (if any) that is induced by opposing types of perturbations. It also introduces a novel combined slip and trip perturbation training paradigm to enhance one's ability to retain and generalize the acquired fall-prevention skills to both types of falls. Slips and trips induced on an over ground walkway will be used to prepare the motor system to improve stability control and vertical limb support to resist falls. The longer-term benefits of such combined perturbation training over exclusive slip-only or trip-only perturbation training in reducing both laboratory-induced and real life falls will also be assessed. The hypothesis of this study if supported by the results will provide an evidence-supported training protocol to reduce the fall-risk among community-dwelling older adults.

Who can participate

Age range60 Years – 90 Years

SexALL

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AI-rewrites the medical criteria so a patient or caregiver can understand them. Always confirm with the trial site.

Inclusion Criteria: * Community ambulators who use assistive device and are able to walk independently for 8m, healthy older adults between the age group of 60 to 90 years. * Absence of any acute or chronic neurological, cardiopulmonary, musculoskeletal or systemic diagnosis. * No recent major surgery (\< 6 months) or hospitalization (\< 3 months) * Not on any sedative drugs. Exclusion Criteria: * Subjects will be excluded if they report presence of pain, osteoporosis or any medical conditions during telephone screening (see Telephone screening form). Also subjects will be excluded if they are on osteoporosis medication, and narcotics/opioids class of drugs under the sedative medications. * Individuals classified as osteoporotic with heel bone density measurement with a T-score \< -2 using an ultrasound device. * Individuals with mild cognitive impairment (Mini-mental State Exam score \< 25/30) * Complain of shortness of breath or uncontrolled pain (\> 3/10 on VAS) or pulse oxygen drops \< 92% or are unable to achieve the age-specified minimal ambulation distance during 6 minute walk test. * Subjects with body weight more than 250lbs.

What they're measuring

Change in laboratory-induced falls

Timeframe: Baseline (1st novel slip, week 1), Immediate post-training (after repeated perturation training session, week 1 ) and at 12-month re-test (to determine long-term retention of training).

Real life falls

Timeframe: prospective post-training over next 12 months (total falls tracked and reported at 12 months post-training will be compared between groups)

Trial details

NCT IDNCT03199729

SponsorUniversity of Illinois at Chicago

Sponsor typeOTHER

Study typeINTERVENTIONAL

Primary completion2025-12-31

View on ClinicalTrials.gov More Older Adults trials