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Variations in gait features in elderly adults during walking considering their balance

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Abstract

The aim of this study was to evaluate the influence of balance on the spatiotemporal features, lower-limb kinematics, and center of mass (COM) of the non-faller elderly during walking. In this study, 20 healthy elderly women (age, 76.2 ± 5.6 years; height, 150.1 ± 3.2 cm; weight, 55.8 ± 9.0 kg) were enrolled. Based on the Berg balance scale (BBS), the elderly were classified into two groups: poor balance (PB; BBS scores <46; n = 10; 43.8 ± 1.8) and good balance (GB; BBS scores ≥46; n = 10; 50.4 ± 2.5). The two groups had no differences in terms of the spatiotemporal features and range of motion (ROM) of the vertical COM (all p > 0.05). The ROM of the mediolateral COM was greater in PB than in GB. Hip transversal movements in the two groups were different. The impairment of the lateral balance function might contribute to an increase in the incidence of fall events in the elderly with poor balance.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported from the research program (R7520-16-0005) by the Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning of the republic of Korea and the Institute of Information & communications Technology Promotion of Korea.

Conflict of interest

There are no conflict of interest.

Human and animal rights

All procedures were performed according to a protocol approved by the Institutional Review Board of the Korea Orthopedics & Rehabilitation Engineering Center (KOREC-IRB-130702-1).

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Author notes

  1. Hyuk-Jae Choi and Han-Sung Kim have contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Rehabilitation Engineering Research Institute, 9-15 Gusan, Bupyeong, Incheon, 21417, Republic of Korea

    Hyuk-Jae Choi, Jeicheong Ryu, Gyoosuk Kim & Chang-Yong Ko

  2. Department of Biomedical Engineering, College of Health Science, Yonsei University, Wonju, Republic of Korea

    Han-Sung Kim

Authors
  1. Hyuk-Jae Choi
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  2. Han-Sung Kim
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  3. Jeicheong Ryu
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  4. Gyoosuk Kim
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  5. Chang-Yong Ko
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Correspondence to Chang-Yong Ko.

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Choi, HJ., Kim, HS., Ryu, J. et al. Variations in gait features in elderly adults during walking considering their balance. Biomed. Eng. Lett. 7, 333–338 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13534-017-0045-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13534-017-0045-0

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