Falls and fall-related injuries are a major problem for elderly persons. Most falls occur during walking and turning, and the risk of falling increases when attention is diverted to something besides walking. It is often difficult to standardize methods for testing balance and fall tendency in a clinically relevant setting. We describe the development of a system using a virtual environment (VE) to assess how attention demanding and unexpected events influence a person's capacity to control balance and movement. The hardware in the system consists of a head-mounted display (HMD), a magnetic tracker system, and two SGI computers. The software consists of the image generation of the VE and the management and visualization of motion tracking data. In a preliminary pilot study eight subjects (age 23-80) participated. Each subject walked on a normal floor and was visually presented a familiar outdoor environment in the HMD. They were exposed to different unexpected events, such as a virtual snowfall and tilting of the VE. Disturbances of balance and walking patterns such as changes in speed, stride length and balance reactions like slipping were observed. Two subjects experienced symptoms of cyber sickness with a SSQ score above 25 points. Walking with sensors only did not affect walking time, but in VE the subjects generally walked more slowly. Virtual tilting of the environment had an impact on balance performance during walking. This effect was not observed while the test subjects were walking in a virtual snowfall. The model needs further development but may hold a potential for clinical use.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1089/cpb.2006.9.388 | DOI Listing |
PLoS One
January 2025
Institute of Physiotherapy, FH Joanneum University of Applied Sciences, Graz, Austria.
The impact of cognitive decline in older adults can be evaluated with dual-task gait (DTG) testing in which a cognitive task is performed during walking, leading to increased costs of gait. Previous research demonstrated that higher DTG costs correlate with increasing cognitive deficits and with age. The present study was conducted to explore whether the relationship between the DTG costs and cognitive abilities in older individuals is influenced by sex differences.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSex Health
January 2025
Mount Sinai Heath System, Center for Transgender Medicine and Surgery, 275 7th Avenue, 15th Floor, New York, NY 10001, USA.
Background In the healthcare setting, transgender patients are often marginalized, face discrimination and have limited access to high-quality gender-affirming care, such as gender-affirming surgery (GAS). As a result, the available data pertaining to GAS are often based on convenience samples, and the majority of published studies in the US are cross-sectional. Transgender people may undergo GAS to align their bodies with their gender identities.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPulmonology
December 2025
Department of Human Movement Sciences, Laboratory of Epidemiology and Human Movement - EPIMOV, Federal University of São Paulo (UNIFESP), São Paulo, Brazil.
Minerva Pediatr (Torino)
January 2025
Transalpine Center of Pediatric Sports Medicine and Surgery, University of Milano-Bicocca, Monza, Monza-Brianza, Italy.
Introduction: The aim of this study was to evaluate the difference between symptomatic discoid lateral meniscus (DLM) and healthy knees in terms of gait analysis.
Evidence Acquisition: A systematic review was conducted from the electronic databases PubMed/MEDLINE, EMBASE and Scopus. The review was performed on studies that reported data on kinematics, gait analysis, biomechanics in discoid lateral meniscus, before and after surgery.
Optom Vis Sci
January 2025
Department of Aged Care and Rehabilitation, Royal North Shore Hospital, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.
Purpose: There is evidence that wearing multifocal glasses increases the risk of falls in older people, especially when walking on stairs and in unfamiliar settings. However, it is not clear whether all types of multifocal glasses are equally associated with falls. This study comprised a secondary analysis of data from the VISIBLE randomized controlled trial to determine whether fall rates differ among older bifocal, trifocal, and progressive addition lens glasses wearers.
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