Kinesiology Commons^™

Aging And Partial Body Weight Support Affects Gait Variability, Anastasia Kyvelidou, Max J. Kurz, Julie L. Ehlers, Nikolaos Stergiou

Journal Articles

Background: Aging leads to increases in gait variability which may explain the large incidence of falls in the elderly. Body weight support training may be utilized to improve gait in the elderly and minimize falls. However, before initiating rehabilitation protocols, baseline studies are needed to identify the effect of body weight support on elderly gait variability. Our purpose was to determine the kinematic variability of the lower extremities in young and elderly healthy females at changing levels of body weight support during walking.

Methods: Ten young and ten elderly females walked on a treadmill for two minutes with a body …

The Influence Of Peripheral Neuropathy On Walking Kinematics And Physical Function, Bradley Manor

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The 108th Congress (2005) has reported that 20 million U.S. citizens suffer from Peripheral Neuropathy (PN). Characterized by sensory nerve deterioration, PN reduces somatosensation (Padua et al., 2005) and increases the risk of fall-related injury (Richardson et al., 1992). The purpose of this dissertation was to provide insight into 1) the effects of acute loss of foot sole sensation on locomotor system health, 2) the effects of PN on locomotor system health, and 3) the underlying impairments associated with reduced physical function within the older adult and PN populations. Locomotor system health was assessed by the magnitude of stride-to-stride variability …