Gait Posture. 2015 Jul;42(2):152-7. doi: 10.1016/j.gaitpost.2015.05.003. Epub 2015 May 14.

Age-related differences in inter-joint coordination during stair walking transitions.

Chiu SL¹, Chang CC², Dennerlein JT³, Xu X⁴.

Author information

1: Department of Environmental Health, Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA; Liberty Mutual Research Institute for Safety, Hopkinton, MA, USA.
2: Department of Industrial Engineering & Engineering Management, National Tsing Hua University, Taiwan, ROC. Electronic address: max.chang@ie.nthu.edu.tw.
3: Department of Environmental Health, Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA; Department of Physical Therapy, Movement, and Rehabilitation Sciences, Bouvé College of Health Sciences, Northeastern University, Boston, MA, USA.
4: Liberty Mutual Research Institute for Safety, Hopkinton, MA, USA.

Abstract

Stair negotiation is one of the most difficult and hazardous locomotor tasks for older adults with fall-related accidences reported frequently. Since knowledge about inter-joint coordination during stair walking provides insights to age-related changes in neuromuscular control of gait that can inform prevention or intervention strategies, the current study investigated the effect of age on the pattern and variability of inter-joint coordination during stair-floor transitions during gait. Gait and motion analyses of the lower extremities of 20 young and 20 older adults during floor to stair (F-S) and stair to floor (S-F) walking transitions provided continuous measures of relative phase (CRP) that assessed inter-joint coordination of the hip, knee, and angle joints. The mean absolute relative phase (MARP) and deviation phase (DP) provided descriptive metrics for CRP pattern and variability respectively. For hip-knee CRP pattern, older adults demonstrated significantly smaller MARP than young adults in stance and most swing phases during F-S and S-F. For knee-ankle, older adults showed a significant smaller MARP of the trailing limb during S-F than young adults. In most stance and swing phases, the hip-knee DP values of older adults were significantly lower than that of young adults. Significant lower knee-ankle DP values of older adults were only detected in swing phase during S-F. The findings suggest that normal aging adults have less independent control of adjacent joints compared to younger adults suggesting they have less flexibility to modulate inter-joints coordination appropriately during stair walking transitions.