Short-term Postural Training for Older Adults

National Cheng-Kung University

Status: Completed

Conditions: Balance; Aging

Treatments: Behavioral: size of error visual feedback

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT04137952

MOST 108-2314-B-006-071 -

Details and patient eligibility

About

Generalization refers to skill transfer under various working spaces following motor practice. The extent of generalization effect links causal to in-depth recognition of error properties during motor practice. Idiom says "imperfect practice makes perfect". It could be beneficial for the elderly to gain superior capacity of balance transfer skill under the short-term productive failure learning environments. In contrast to traditional visual feedback that uses error avoidance training to optimize target balance task, the present 3-year proposal is to propose three potential neuro-cognitive strategies to improve motor skill transfer following stabilometer training. The strategies are expected to enhance opportunities of error experience and motor exploration via modified visual feedback, underlying facilitations of attentional resource and error-related neural networks. In the first year, the neuro-cognitive strategy for balance practice is progressive augmentation of visual error size to improve balance skill transfer. In the second year, the neuro-cognitive strategy for balance practice is visual feedback with virtual uncertainness of motor goal. In the third year, the neuro-cognitive strategy for balance practice is stroboscopic vision. EEG and central of pressure will be processed with non-linear approaches. Graph theory will characterize EEG functional connectivity and brain network efficiency regarding to brain mechanisms for practice-related leaning transfer. Trajectories of central of pressure will be analyzed with stabilogram diffusion analysis to reveal behavior mechanisms for practice-related variations in feedback and feedforward process for error corrections.

Enrollment: 150 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 60+ years old

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• Age above 60 years old healthy older adults without a history of falls.
• Able to understand and give informed consent.
• The Mini-Mental State Examination test score above 25-30.
• Lower limb muscle strength is evaluated as G grade
• The corrected visual acuity was within the normal range.

Exclusion criteria

• Any known history of mental illness
• Any neuromuscular or degenerative neurological disease(ex:stroke、SCI、TBI...etc)
• Any known history of cerebral cerebellar disease or intracranial metal implants.
• Weak of hearing or wearing a hearing aid

Trial design

Primary purpose: Basic Science

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

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150 participants in 3 patient groups

deterministic visual error gain

Experimental group

Description:

Day1(Pretest): 1. stabilometer stance, 3 times/1 min 2. air pillow stance, 3 time/30 sec 3. poture-supraposture dual task, 3 times/1 min Day2 to Day5: 1. Exp.group:27 times of posture tracking with high visual error gain. 2. Control group:27 times of posture training with normal visual error gain. Day6 (Posttest): 1. stabilometer stance, 3 times/1 min 2. air pillow stance, 3 time/30 sec 3. poture-supraposture dual task, 3 times/1 min

Treatment:

Behavioral: size of error visual feedback

stochastic visual noise

Experimental group

Description:

Day1(Pretest): 1. stabilometer stance, 3 times/1 min 2. air pillow stance, 3 time/30 sec 3. poture-supraposture dual task, 3 times/1 min Day2 to Day5: 1. Exp.group A:27 times of posture training with posture tracking signal-to-noise ratio=2:1. 2. Exp.group B:27 times of posture training with posture tracking signal-to-noise ratio=4:1. 3. Control group:27 times of posture training with normal visual error gain. Day6(Posttest): 1. stabilometer stance, 3 times/1 min 2. air pillow stance, 3 time/30 sec 3. poture-supraposture dual task, 3 times/1 min

Treatment:

Behavioral: size of error visual feedback

intermittent visual gain

Experimental group

Description:

Day1 (Pretest): 1. stabilometer stance with wearing flash glasses (low frequency with opaque ratio 50%), 4 times/45 sec 2. stabilometer stance with wearing flash glasses (high frequency with opaque ratio 50%), 4 times/45 sec. 3. stabilometer stance with wearing flash glasses (clear), 4 times/45 sec 4. air pillow stance, 8 times/1 min Day2 (training section): 1. Exp. group:Posture tracking with wearing flash glasses (low frequency with opaque ratio 50%), 12 times/45 sec. 2. Control group:Posture tracking with wearing flash glasses (clear), 12 times/45 sec. Day3 (Posttest): 1. stabilometer stance with wearing flash glasses (low frequency with opaque ratio 50%), 4 times/45 sec 2. stabilometer stance with wearing flash glasses (high frequency with opaque ratio 50%), 4 times/45 sec 3. stabilometer stance with wearing flash glasses (clear), 4 times/45 sec 4. air pillow stance, 8 times/1 min

Treatment:

Behavioral: size of error visual feedback