Acute effect of an intervention with open and closed kinetic chain muscle strength exercises on postural control and muscle power in elderly people: A randomized clinical trial.

Introduction: Aging causes changes in stance control and muscle function. However, strength exercises can mitigate these negative effects. Intervention practices are classified into open kinetic chain (OKC) and closed kinetic chain (CKC), but it is unclear whether there are differences between them regarding muscle power and balance in the older people.

Influence of complexity of the task and the level of physical activity in the association between the muscular function and posture of older adults.

Introduction: Postural control involves the coordination of muscle synergies of lower limb for the performance of postural strategies. However, the relationship between muscle function and postural control of older adults with different levels of physical activity has not yet been fully elucidated. The aim of this study was to analyze the influence of muscle function of lower limb on postural control in tasks with disturbance in the visual and somatosensory systems of older adults with different levels of physical activity.

Influence of Physical Characteristics of Obstacles on the Locomotor Pattern of Older Adults at Higher Risk of Falling.

Objective: This study aimed to investigate the locomotor behavior of older adults with and without a history of falls as they avoided obstacles with different physical characteristics.

Methods: Twenty-one older adults participated in this study. The group was divided into higher risk of falling (n = 10) and lower risk of falling (n = 11).

Attentional Focus Strategies Can Improve Performance of Postural Control in Runners.

Attentional focus strategies, especially external focus, are associated with improvements in mechanisms of postural control. This can be important in reducing sports injuries in practices such as running, which has seen an increase in adherence. However, the impacts of these strategies on postural control in runners are unclear.

Postural Stability When Grasping an Object While Standing: Younger and Older Adults (Fallers and Non-Fallers).

We investigated postural stability through the margin of stability (MoS) while reaching and grasping an object with increasing difficulty levels in younger, fallers and non-fallers. Forty-five individuals distributed into three groups participated in this study: younger adults (YA), non-fallers (OA), and fallers (FOA). They stood upright and reached and grasped a dowel.

Increased Risk of Falling in Older Adults When Coordinating Obstacle Avoidance and Grasping.

This study aimed to investigate the kinematic changes in obstacle avoidance and prehension tasks performed simultaneously by older adults with a history of falls at different levels of task difficulty. Twenty-six older adults were divided into faller and nonfaller groups. The experimental protocol was divided into two different tasks: walking with obstacle avoidance and walking with obstacle avoidance combined with a reach-to-grasp task.

The Effect of Acute Caffeine Ingestion on Tactical Performance of Professional Soccer Players.

In soccer, physical, tactical, and decision-making processes are highly important facets of successful performance. Caffeine has well established effects for promoting both physical and cognitive performance, but the translation of such benefits specifically for soccer match play is not well established. This study examined the effects of acute caffeine ingestion on tactical performance during small-sided games (SSG) in professional soccer players.

The starting distance of obstacle circumvention did not affect intersegmental coordination in individuals with Parkinson's disease.

Background: Obstacle circumvention is a challenging task in Parkinson's disease (PD). Body segments adjustments, such as changing the direction of the trunk, followed by a change in the direction of the head, and modifications in the positioning of the feet, are necessary to circumvent an obstacle during walking. For that, individuals need to identify the distance to the obstacle, its characteristics (such as its dimension), and perform well-coordinated movements.

Visual cues two-steps ahead are adequate to grasp an object while walking without compromising stability.

In our prior studies, participants walked and grasped a dowel using an anticipatory mode of control. However, it is unknown how this combined task would change in a less predictable environment. We investigated the online control aspects involved in the combined task of walking and grasping under different coordination patterns between upper- and lower-limbs in young adults.

Prolonged Standing Task Affects Adaptability of Postural Control in People With Parkinson's Disease.

Background: Studies on short-term upright quiet standing tasks have presented contradictory findings about postural control in people with Parkinson's disease (pwPD). Prolonged trial durations might better depict body sway and discriminate pwPD and controls.

Objective: The aim of this study was to investigate postural control in pwPD during a prolonged standing task.

Stability control in older adults with asymmetrical load carrying when stepping down a curb.

We investigated the effect of asymmetric load carrying using different bag types with the dominant and non-dominant hands on upper limb coordination, walking adaptations, and stability control in a curb-descend task in older adults. Fourteen participants walked on a pathway with a 16-cm curb located in the middle. They walked without a load or asymmetrically carrying a load corresponding to 7% of their body mass.

Asymmetrical load-carrying while stepping down a curb in young adults.

Background: Asymmetrical load-carrying while walking requires modifications in joint forces to compensate the extra mass and ensure body stability, particularly when the environment is uneven, such as with a curb. Carrying a bag with one hand (dominant or non-dominant) may constrain the movement of the arm, altering the interlimb coordination of the upper limbs. Prior studies did not show changes in interlimb coordination when a light load was attached to the wrist, but the use of a bag to carry the load can be potentially disturbing since exaggerated movements of the bags may compromise balance.

Walking combined with reach-to-grasp while crossing obstacles at different distances.

Background: Obstacle avoidance and object prehension occur regularly in real-world environments (walking up/down steps and opening a door). However, it is not known how walking and prehension change when there is an increase in the level of difficulty of the walking task.

Research Question: We investigated the changes in walking and reach-tograsp when performing these two motor skills concomitantly in the presence of an obstacle on the ground positioned in different locations in relation to the object-to-be-grasped.

Changes in interlimb coordination during walking and grasping task in older adult fallers and non-fallers.

The aim of this study was to investigate interlimb coordination in young and older adults with and without a history of falls during the combined task of walking and prehension with different levels of manual task difficulty. Participants walked on a pathway and grasped a dowel. A vector coding technique evaluated coordination patterns.

Prehension Combined With Gait in Individuals With Chronic Low Back Pain.

Low back pain (LBP) can affect performance in the combined task (CT) of gait and prehension, since it increases muscle activity amplitude during voluntary movements, impairs the anticipatory postural adjustments and reduces gait speed. We analyzed and compared the effect of adding the prehension movement toward a dowel located at three different heights (80, 100 and 120% of the lower limb length) on gait of individuals with and without LBP. The CT caused anticipatory adjustments, showing that gait changes started during the approach phase and continued on the step corresponding to grasping, especially for the lowest dowel height.

Gait and reach-to-grasp movements are mutually modified when performed simultaneously.

Typically, prehension and gait behaviors are studied separately. However, little is known about what changes occur in these motor skills when they are combined. We investigated and characterized motor performance during combined walking and prehension at different levels of difficulty of the prehension task.

Functional capacity of Brazilian patients with Parkinson's disease (PD): relationship between clinical characteristics and disease severity.

The present study had three objectives: (a) to characterize the functional capacity of patients with PD, (b) to assess the relationship between the physical fitness components of functional capacity with clinical characteristics and disease severity, and (c) to compare the physical fitness components of functional capacity with clinical characteristics according to disease severity. The study included 54 patients with idiopathic PD who were distributed into two groups according to PD severity: unilateral group (n=35); and bilateral group (n=19). All patients underwent psychiatric assessment by means of the Hoehn and Yahr (HY) staging of PD, the Unified Parkinson's Disease Rating Scale (UPDRS), the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS-A and HADS-D, respectively), and The Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE).

Age-related changes in postural control sensory reweighting.

The aim of this study was to investigate the adaptive process in the coupling between visual information and body sway in children postural control. Twenty-seven children from 4-, 8- and 12-year-olds and ten adults stood upright inside of a moving room. In the first 2 min, the room was moved continuously at frequency of 0.

Influence of imposed optic flow characteristics and intention on postural responses.

This study examined the influence of both optic flow characteristics and intention on postural control responses. Two groups of 10 adults each were exposed to the room's movement either at 0.6 cm/s (low velocity group) or 1.