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，可以减少处于危险中的老年人跌倒和由此造成的伤害的发生率，从而降低其不断上升的医疗费用。本项目通过使用跑步机设备和运动学习方法来探索扰动训练，其中使用跑步机产生的类似滑动的扰动的经验来准备运动系统的发展，然后在训练环境之外使用抗跌倒技能（跨环境迁移）。电脑控制的跑步机便携，安全，易于操作，因此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项目，并将进一步测试，在这样一个单一的会议后，处于风险中的老年人可以保持这种跨环境转移，并在未来6到12个月内减少他们在日常生活中跌倒的可能性。最后，研究

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.