Joint moments’ contributions to vertically accelerate the center of mass during stair ambulation in the elderly: An induced acceleration approach

Abstract

Falls are a serious problem faced by the elderly. Older adults report mostly to fall while performing locomotor activities, especially the ones requiring stair negotiation. During these tasks, older adults, when compared with young adults, seem to redistribute their lower limb joint moments. This may indicate that older adults use a different strategy to accelerate the body upward during these tasks. The purposes of this study were to quantify the contributions of each lower limb joint moment to vertically accelerate the center of mass during stair ascent and descent, in a sample of community-dwelling older adults, and to verify if those contributions were correlated with age and functional fitness level. A joint moment induced acceleration analysis was performed in 29 older adults while ascending and descending stairs at their preferred speed. Agreeing with previous studies, during both tasks, the ankle plantarflexor and the knee extensor joint moments were the main contributors to support the body. Although having a smaller contribution to vertically accelerate the body, during stair descent, the hip joint moment contribution was related with the balance score. Further, older adults, when compared with the results reported previously for young adults, seem to use more their knee extensor moment than the ankle plantarflexor moment to support the body when the COM downward velocity is increasing. By contributing for a better understanding of stair negotiation in community dwelling older adults, this study may help to support the design of interventions aiming at fall prevention and/or mobility enhancement within this population.