Modeling Sensory Integration and Attention in Postural Control of Older Adults

描述（由申请人提供）：跌倒是老年人的重要问题，由感觉、运动和认知丧失的复杂相互作用引起。事实证明，老年人需要更多的认知资源（即注意力）来保持平衡。此外，相对于平衡的感觉信息的动态调节在平衡功能中是重要的。与年轻人相比，环境变化改变了身体方向和运动的感觉信息，对老年人的平衡有更大的影响，但目前尚不清楚年轻人和老年人在姿势控制方面的差异在多大程度上是由于感觉整合的差异造成的。此外，老年人的注意力和感觉统合的相互作用尚未得到充分的研究和发展。本研究将探讨健康老年人体位控制中感觉统合与注意的相互作用，并建立模型。我们计划通过修改和应用一个经过验证的感觉重加权姿势控制模型来定量研究老年受试者的注意和感觉调节的相互作用，以包括高级认知功能（即注意）的作用，然后进行双任务平衡实验来验证该模型。我们研究的一个中心假设是，需要注意的信息处理任务同时伴有适度的姿势挑战会转移老年人对平衡控制的注意力，这可以通过我们提出的姿势控制模型中的时间延迟和其他生理相关参数来量化。这项拟议的研究与公共卫生有关，因为与年轻人相比，老年人跌倒是一个严重的问题。改变感觉定向信息的环境变化往往对老年人产生更大的不稳定影响，老年人似乎需要更多的注意力资源来控制平衡。然而，注意和感觉整合之间的相互作用是一个悬而未决的问题。研究这两个因素是如何相互作用的，并建立一个相互作用的模型，将有助于更好地了解它们对平衡控制和老年人跌倒易感条件的影响。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Falls are a significant problem in older adults, resulting from a complex interaction of sensory, motor and cognitive loss. Older adults have been shown to require increased cognitive resources (i.e. attention) for balance. In addition, dynamic regulation of sensory information relative to balance is known to be important in balance function. Environmental changes that alter sensory information about body orientation and motion have a greater impact on balance of older adults compared to young adults, but it is not known to what extent differences in postural control between young and older adults are due to differences in sensory integration. Moreover, the interaction of attention and sensory integration in older adults has not been fully studied or developed. The proposed research will investigate and model the interaction of sensory integration and attention in postural control in healthy older subjects. We plan to quantitatively investigate the interactions of attention and sensory regulation in older subjects by modifying and applying a validated sensory re-weighting postural control model to include the role of higher cognitive function (i.e. attention), and then perform dual-task balance experiments to validate the model. A central hypothesis of our research is that attention-requiring information processing tasks concurrent with moderate postural challenges will divert attention away from balance control in older adults, which can be quantified by time delay and other physiologically relevant parameters in our proposed postural control model. The proposed research is relevant to public health in that falls are a significant problem in older adults compared to young adults. Environmental changes that alter sensory orientation information tend to have a greater destabilizing effect on older adults, and older adults appear to require greater attentional resources for balance control. However, the interaction between attention and sensory integration is an open question. Studying how these two factors interact, and developing a model of that interaction, will lead to better understanding of their impact on balance control and predisposing conditions for falls in older adults.