Conscious Movement Processing, Fall-Related Anxiety, and the Visuomotor Control of Locomotion in Older Adults.

ABSTRACT:

Objectives

Older adults anxious about falling will often consciously process walking movements in an attempt to avoid falling. They also fixate their gaze on the present step rather than looking ahead to plan future actions. The present work examined whether conscious movement strategies result in such restricted visual planning.

Methods

A total of 18 community-dwelling older adults (agemean = 71.22; SD = 5.75) walked along a path and stepped into two raised targets. Repeated-measures analyses of variance were used to compare gaze behavior and movement kinematics when participants walked: (a) at baseline (ground level); (b) under conditions designed to induce fall-related anxiety (walkway elevated 0.6 m); and (c) in the absence of anxiety (ground level), but with explicit in

SUBMITTER: Ellmers TJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7566972 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature