Contribution of arm movements to balance recovery after tripping in older adults

Abstract

Falls are common in daily life, often caused by trips and slips and, particularly in older adults, with serious consequences. Although arm movements play an important role in balance control, there is limited research into the role of arm movements during balance recovery after tripping in older adults. We investigated how older adults use their arms to recover from a trip and the difference in the effects of arm movements between fallers (n = 5) and non-fallers (n = 11). Sixteen older males and females (69.7 ± 2.3 years) walked along a walkway and were occasionally tripped over suddenly appearing obstacles. We analysed the first trip using a biomechanical model based on full-body kinematics and force-plate data to calculate whole body orientation during the trip and recovery phase. With this model, we simulated the effects of arm movements at foot-obstacle impact and during trip recovery on body orientation. Apart from an increase in sagittal plane forward body rotation at touchdown in fallers, we found no significant differences between fallers and non-fallers in the effects of arm movements on trip recovery. Like earlier studies in young adults, we found that arm movements during the recovery phase had most favourable effects in the transverse plane: by delaying the transfer of angular momentum of the arms to the body, older adults rotated the tripped side more forward thereby allowing for a larger recovery step. Older adults that are prone to falling might improve their balance recovery after tripping by learning to prolong ongoing arm movements.

Keywords: Accidental falls; Angular momentum; Arm swing; Elderly; Gait stability; Perturbation; Upper extremity.