Effect of Adaptive Training for Balance Recovery

University of Illinois

Status: Completed

Conditions: Balance, Postural; Prevention, Accident

Treatments: Behavioral: treadmill training placebo; Behavioral: observation training; Behavioral: treadmill slip perturbation

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other; NIH

Identifiers

NCT02126488

2000-0788

R01AG044364 (U.S. NIH Grant/Contract)

Details and patient eligibility

About

The long-term objective of this research is a prophylactic approach that can reduce the incidence of falls and the resulting injuries among older adults at risk and thus reduce its escalating medical cost. This project explores perturbation training through the use of treadmill device and a motor learning approach, in which experience with slip-like perturbation generated by that treadmill is used to prepare the motor system to develop and then put to use fall-resisting skills outside of training environment (cross-environment transfer). The computer-controlled treadmill is portable, safe and easy to operate, thus conducive for use in clinics or community centers. The study logically builds on and complements the team's previous and current research programs, and will further test that after such a single session, older adults at risk can retain such cross-environment transfer and reduce their likelihood of falls in everyday living for the next 6 to 12 months. Finally, the study will explore that such reduction of falls does not come merely from these persons' familiarity with the training or testing setup, protocol and environments.

Enrollment: 308 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 65+ years old

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• Subjects with no known history of musculoskeletal, neurological, cardiovascular, or pulmonary impairment that may affect their ability to perform the testing procedures will be included.

Exclusion criteria

• Ultrasound calcaneus bone mineral density T score < -2.5 (osteoporotic)
• Mini-Mental State exam score < 25 (cognitive impairment)

Trial design

Primary purpose: Prevention

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: Single Blind

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308 participants in 3 patient groups, including a placebo group

treadmill perturbation

Experimental group

Description:

treadmill slip perturbation

Treatment:

Behavioral: treadmill slip perturbation

treadmill placebo

Placebo Comparator group

Description:

treadmill training placebo

Treatment:

Behavioral: treadmill training placebo

observation

Sham Comparator group

Description:

observation training

Treatment:

Behavioral: observation training