Age-Related Differences in Backward Walking under Different Visual Information

向後行走時對於不同的視覺訊息之年齡相關的影響

李佩芸(Pei-Yun Lee) ； 林桑伊(Sang-I Lin) ； 李佩紜(Pei-Yun Lee)

《物理治療》 42卷4期 (2017/12) Pp. 350-351

https://doi.org/10.6215/FJPT.2017.74.P18

摘要

Background and Purpose: Backward walking is a common daily activity, such as stepping back when opening a door or backing away from a desk, and also used as an exercise to enhance balance and muscle strength in older adults. However, when walking backward, one could not see the environment of the steering direction and hence increasing the risks of falling, especially in older adults. The purpose of this study was to investigate the influence of different visual information on backward walking performance in healthy young and older adults. Methods: Eight healthy young (22.13 ± 1.55 years) and elderly adults (70.75 ± 4.77 years) were recruited in the study. All subjects were asked to walk backward at self-selected speed on an 8-meter walkway under three different visual conditions: (1) normal vision (N), (2) looking at a mirror providing additional visual information (M), and (3) wearing a pair of blurry goggle (G). SIMI MOTION® was used to obtain kinematic data during backward walking. Spatio-temporal gait parameters, including stance and swing phase duration, step and stride time, step and stride length, and walking speed were measured from the reflective markers on bilateral heels and second metatarsal heads. Mann-Whitney test was used to compare between-group differences and Friedman test was used to compare within-group differences. Significance level was set at p ＜ 0.05. Results: The elderly exhibited significantly slower walking speed, and shorter step and stride length than the young adults during backward walking in all visual conditions (p ＜ 0.05). Comparing different visual conditions, the elderly showed significantly shorter stance phase duration (N: 64.7 ± 6.31% GC; G: 65.10 ± 5.38% GC; M: 84.67 ± 3.83% GC, p ＜ 0.05) and longer stride time (N: 1.20 ± 0.27 s; G: 1.12 ± 0.22 s; M: 1.08 ± 0.21 s, p ＜ 0.05) in normal vision than the other two conditions. Similar to the elderly, the young adults showed significantly shorter stance phase duration (N: 64.65 ± 2.57% GC; M: 83.91 ± 1.83% GC, p ＜ 0.05) in normal vision than the looking-at-mirror condition, and longer step (N: 0.59 ± 0.57 s; G: 0.55 ± 0.45 s; M: 0.53 ± 0.56 s, p ＜ 0.05) and stride time (N: 0.12 ± 0.11 s; G: 1.08 ± 0.11 s; M: 1.05 ± 0.09 s, p ＜ 0.05) in normal vision than the other two conditions. Conclusion: Similar to forward walking, the elderly walked backward with slower speed and shorter stride length than the young adults. Our preliminary results suggest that under different visual conditions the elderly might use similar strategy to the young adults to adjust their gait pattern during backward walking. However, further study will be required to understand the joint kinematics changes during backward walking under different visual information. Clinical Relevance: This study provided important information on how elderly would respond to different visual information during backward walking.