PERTURBATION TRAINING FOR FALL-RISK REDUCTION AMONG OLDER ADULTS

描述（由申请人提供）：本研究的长期目标是一种预防性方法，可以减少老年人风险中福尔斯的发生率及其导致的伤害，从而降低其不断上升的医疗成本。该项目通过使用跑步机设备和运动学习方法探索扰动训练，其中跑步机产生的类似滑动的扰动的经验用于准备运动系统，以开发然后在训练环境之外使用抗跌倒技能（跨环境转移）。电脑控制的跑步机是便携式的，安全和易于操作，从而有利于在诊所或社区中心使用。该研究在逻辑上建立并补充了该团队之前和当前的研究计划，并将进一步测试在这样一个单一的会议之后，处于风险中的老年人可以保留这种跨环境转移，并在未来6至12个月内减少他们在日常生活中福尔斯的可能性。最后，研究 将探索这种福尔斯的减少不仅仅来自于这些人对培训或测试设置、协议和环境的熟悉。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The long-term objective of this research is a prophylactic approach that can reduce the incidence of falls and the resulting injuries among older adults at risk and thus reduce its escalating medical cost. This project explores perturbation training through the use of treadmill device and a motor learning approach, in which experience with slip-like perturbation generated by that treadmill is used to prepare the motor system to develop and then put to use fall-resisting skills outside of training environment (cross-environment transfer). The computer-controlled treadmill is portable, safe and easy to operate, thus conducive for use in clinics or community centers. The study logically builds on and complements the team's previous and current research programs, and will further test that after such a single session, older adults at risk can retain such cross- environment transfer and reduce their likelihood of falls in everyday living for the next 6 to 12 months. Finally, the study will explore that such reduction of falls does not come merely from these persons' familiarity with the training or testing setup, protocol and environments.