BACKGROUND Older persons reporting disability are more likely to report poor self-rated health, but little work has been done to assess the independent relationships of reported walking difficulty and measured walking performance with self-rated health. This study examines the associations of walking difficulty, walking speed, and age with self-rated health in older women. METHODS The data ar...

A critical aspect of perception-action coupling is the ability to modify ongoing actions in accordance with variations in the environment. Infants' ability to modify their gait patterns to walk down shallow and steep slopes was examined at three nested time scales. Across sessions, a microgenetic training design showed rapid improvements after the first session in infants receiving concentrated...

"Walking-Mode Maps", based on Slip/Non-Slip criteria, are proposed. Slip/Non-Slip criteria are expressed as follows: for a slip to occur: |F(h)/F(n)|(h) > or = mu(s) or |F(h)/F(n)|(t) > or = mu(s); for no slip to occur: |F(h)/F(n)|(h) < mu(s) or |F(h)/F(n)|(t) < mu(s). |F(h)/F(n)|(h) and |F(h)/F(n)|(t) are the maximum peak value of the traction coefficient at heel-strike and toe-off respectivel...

Both sleep disorders and sarcopenia are common among older adults. However, little is known about the relationship between these 2 conditions.This study aimed to investigate the possible association between sleep duration and sarcopenia in a population of Chinese community-dwelling older adults.Community-dwelling older adults aged 60 years or older were recruited. Self-reported sleep duration, ...

Perceived visual speed has been reported to be reduced during walking. This reduction has been attributed to a partial subtraction of walking speed from visual speed (F. H. Durgin & K. Gigone, 2007; F. H. Durgin, K. Gigone, & R. Scott, 2005). We tested whether observers still have access to the retinal flow before subtraction takes place. Observers performed a 2IFC visual speed discrimination t...

In this randomized controlled study we analyse and compare the acute and chronic effects of visual and acoustic cues on gait performance in Parkinson's Disease (PD). We enrolled 46 patients with idiopathic PD who were assigned to 3 different modalities of gait training: (1) use of acoustic cues, (2) use of visual cues, or (3) overground training without cues. All patients were tested with kinem...

BACKGROUND Obstacle crossing is impaired in people following stroke. It is not known whether people with stroke who fail an obstacle crossing task have more falls or whether the gait adjustments used to cross an obstacle differ from those used by people who pass the task. OBJECTIVE The purposes of this study were (1) to identify whether a group of people with stroke who failed an obstacle cro...

The widespread and pervasive use of smartphones for sending messages, calling, and entertainment purposes, mainly among young adults, is often accompanied by the concurrent execution of other tasks. Recent studies have analyzed how texting, reading or calling while walking-in some specific conditions-might significantly influence gait parameters. The aim of this study is to examine the effect o...

BACKGROUND Little is known about the natural course of frailty. We performed a prospective study to determine the transition rates between frailty states and to evaluate the effect of the preceding frailty state on subsequent frailty transitions. METHODS We studied 754 community-living persons, aged 70 years or older, who were nondisabled in 4 essential activities of daily living. Frailty, as...

During walking, the body center of mass oscillates along the vertical plane. Its displacement is highest at mid-swing and lowest at terminal swing during the transition to double support. Its vertical velocity (CoMv) has been observed to increase as the center of mass falls between mid- and late swing but is reduced just before double support. This suggests that braking of the center of mass is...