Aging and vestibular disease on postural control

该职业发展奖项的主要目标是培养候选人作为一名独立研究者在老龄化领域进行定量研究，特别是在老年人平衡障碍领域。该候选人具有机械和生物医学工程以及物理治疗方面的背景。因此，他将自己定位于理解临床人群的问题，并应用分析技术以定量的方式研究这些问题。候选人打算利用该奖项接受与人口老龄化相关的重点课程和研究培训。候选人打算通过两个核心领域的课程来增加他在工程和临床科学方面的教育：1)衰老和神经生理学，2)道德训练。两位德高望重的研究人员Mark Redfern博士和Joseph Furman博士将指导候选人的研究发展。在他们的指导下，候选人将在老年人和前庭疾病患者的研究中接受姿势控制研究方法的强化培训。这项研究的主要目的是增加我们对年龄和前庭疾病对姿势控制的综合影响的理解，以减少老年人跌倒的风险。前庭功能障碍患者通常报告在复杂和快速变化的视觉刺激（如超市）的情况下感觉不平衡。老年人的感觉功能下降，或中央处理速度减慢，可能会使这些信息的中央整合变得更加困难，从而导致更大的不平衡。拟议的研究将检查老年人和年轻人，有或没有前庭疾病，当他们看到一个移动的视觉场景时的姿势摇摆反应。第一个实验将研究以可预测的方式移动的场景在60秒内的稳态姿势摇摆反应。第二个实验将检测对每20秒变化一次的场景的瞬态摇摆响应。我们假设，在稳态条件下，衰老和前庭疾病的共同作用将导致更大的姿势摇摆，并且在瞬态条件下视觉刺激改变后，不适当的姿势反应将持续存在。从这些实验中获得的数据将用于验证姿势控制的反馈模型。了解患有前庭功能障碍的老年人如何在这些情况下整合感觉信息，将提高我们制定平衡康复计划的能力，以减少老年人跌倒的风险。

The primary objective of this career development award is to prepare the candidate to perform quantitative research as an independent investigator in the field of aging, specifically in the area of balance disorders of older adults. The candidate has backgrounds in mechanical and biomedical engineering and physical therapy. Consequently he has positioned himself to understand the problems of clinical populations and apply analytical techniques to study these problems in a quantitative fashion. The candidate intends to use this award to receive focused coursework and research training related to aging populations. The candidate intends to augment his education in the engineering and clinical sciences with coursework in two core areas: 1) aging and neurophysiology, 2) ethical training. Dr. Mark Redfern and Dr. Joseph Furman, two highly respected researchers, will mentor the candidate's research development. With their guidance, the candidate will receive intensive training in postural control research methods in the study of older adults and persons with vestibular disorders. The primary objective of this research is to increase our understanding of the combined effects of aging and vestibular disease on postural control in an effort to reduce the risk of falling in older adults. Patients with vestibular dysfunction commonly report a feeling of imbalance in situations with complex and rapidly changing visual stimuli such as in supermarkets. It is possible that reduced sensory function in older adults, or a slowing in central processing, may render the central integration of such information more difficult, resulting in greater imbalance. The proposed research will examine the postural sway response of older and younger adults, with and without vestibular disorders, as they view a moving visual scene. The first experiment will investigate the steady- state postural sway response to a scene that moves in a predictable manner for 60 seconds. The second experiment will examine the transient sway response to a scene that changes every 20 seconds. We hypothesize that the combined effects of aging and vestibular disease will result in greater postural sway during steady-state conditions, and that an inappropriate postural response will persist after the visual stimulus changes during transient conditions. Data obtained from these experiments will be used to validate feedback models of postural control. Understanding how older subjects with vestibular disorders integrate sensory information during these conditions will enhance our ability to develop balance rehabilitation programs in an effort to reduce the risk of falls in older adults.