The long-term goal of this study is to understand the motor control processes underlying protective stepping for human balance recovery in older persons. Aging appears to present specific problems in controlling lateral stability. Impaired ability to generate rapid and controlled adductor-abductor muscular forces and postural movements may predispose many older persons to lateral instability and falls. This project focuses on the ways steps are generated to maintain balance under different directions of perturbed balance. Specifically, it will compare the ways younger individuals and active healthy community dwelling older persons control their body movements in response to different directions of postural disturbances. The authors propose that age-associated differences in frontal plane protective stepping patterns will indicate lateral instability in stance, and that these differences will be predictive of the risk of falling. This lateral instability may be associated with a reduced capacity to produce effective hip joint abductor-adductor torque-time responses to control frontal plane body motion and stepping. This may be reflected in impaired neuromuscular activation processes and/or in intrinsic changes in muscle contraction mechanisms. Identifying key motor control processes underlying protective stepping behavior as a function of age and future risk of falls will improve our understanding of the pathogenesis of disablement.
| Mille, Marie-Laure; Simoneau, Martin; Rogers, Mark W (2014) Postural dependence of human locomotion during gait initiation. J Neurophysiol 112:3095-103 |
| Mille, Marie-Laure; Johnson-Hilliard, Marjorie; Martinez, Katherine M et al. (2013) One step, two steps, three steps more ... Directional vulnerability to falls in community-dwelling older people. J Gerontol A Biol Sci Med Sci 68:1540-8 |
| Hilliard, Marjorie Johnson; Martinez, Katherine M; Janssen, Imke et al. (2008) Lateral balance factors predict future falls in community-living older adults. Arch Phys Med Rehabil 89:1708-13 |
| St George, Rebecca J; Fitzpatrick, Richard C; Rogers, Mark W et al. (2007) Choice stepping response and transfer times: effects of age, fall risk, and secondary tasks. J Gerontol A Biol Sci Med Sci 62:537-42 |
| Patton, James L; Hilliard, Marjorie Johnson; Martinez, Kathy et al. (2006) A simple model of stability limits applied to sidestepping in young, elderly and elderly fallers. Conf Proc IEEE Eng Med Biol Soc 1:3305-8 |
| Mille, Marie-Laure; Johnson, Marjorie E; Martinez, Katherine M et al. (2005) Age-dependent differences in lateral balance recovery through protective stepping. Clin Biomech (Bristol, Avon) 20:607-16 |
| Johnson, Marjorie E; Mille, Marie-Laure; Martinez, Kathy M et al. (2004) Age-related changes in hip abductor and adductor joint torques. Arch Phys Med Rehabil 85:593-7 |
| Mille, M-L; Rogers, M W; Martinez, K et al. (2003) Thresholds for inducing protective stepping responses to external perturbations of human standing. J Neurophysiol 90:666-74 |
| Rogers, Mark W; Johnson, Marjorie E; Martinez, Kathy M et al. (2003) Step training improves the speed of voluntary step initiation in aging. J Gerontol A Biol Sci Med Sci 58:46-51 |
| Rogers, Mark W; Hedman, Lois D; Johnson, Marjorie E et al. (2003) Triggering of protective stepping for the control of human balance: age and contextual dependence. Brain Res Cogn Brain Res 16:192-8 |
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