A primary health concern for aging adults is balance deterioration which severely limits their activities of daily living and community participation.  While a decline in the ability to use compensatory (feedback) mechanism of postural control has been studied in this population, the utilization of anticipatory (feedforward) postural adjustments in the elderly is not well documented. During prior work in the investigators� laboratory, they developed a new method of application of external body perturbations to study both, the anticipatory and compensatory mechanisms of postural control and their interaction.

Given the insufficiency of data in this area and the availability of a novel experimental technique, the aims of this study are: 1) to provide important baseline information regarding the generation of anticipatory postural adjustments in older individuals, 2) to investigate the interaction between anticipatory and compensatory mechanisms of balance control in the older adults, and 3) to examine the effect of differences in functional balance capacity of the older adults on the interaction between anticipatory and compensatory mechanisms of balance control.

(NIH Grant HD-64838)

Return to Current Projects