Biomechanical Characterization of the Hand Touch Corrective Behavior in the Frail Elderly During Bed Egress

Abstract

Falls are the leading cause of fatal and non-fatal injuries among the elderly in the United States and throughout the world. Many studies have been done over the last few decades in an attempt to better understand how to prevent falls among the elderly population. Unfortunately, most of these studies are conducted by simulating falls in a laboratory with healthy adults which has been shown to be quite different from a real world fall. This pilot study defines corrective behaviors implemented by the elderly to maintain balance and looks specifically at measures of stability when the hand touch corrective behavior is used. These measures include base of support area, proximity of center of mass to base of support perimeter, time for center of mass to contact base of support perimeter, and jerk of the center of mass of the torso. Initial findings indicate that the hand touch corrective behavior is used to both maintain and regain stability. It is anticipated that, with the evaluation of the remaining trials, a model of fall-initiation of the frail elderly will be developed to provide key biomechanical stability measures for use as a proxy for a fall in laboratory studies, as well as to provide new insights in fall interventions.