Part 2 — A Special Selection on Biological MechanicsNo Access

A PRELIMINARY STUDY OF AGE-SPECIFIC DIFFERENCES IN BALANCE, MUSCLE STRENGTH, AND POSTURAL SWAY FOR THE RISK OF FALLING

JIN SEUNG CHOI

Department of Biomedical Engineering, Konkuk University, 268 Chungwon-Daero, Chungju 27478, Korea

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DONG WON KANG

Department of Biomedical Engineering, Konkuk University, 268 Chungwon-Daero, Chungju 27478, Korea

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JEONG WOO SEO

Department of Biomedical Engineering, Konkuk University, 268 Chungwon-Daero, Chungju 27478, Korea

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TAE HO KIM

Department of Biomedical Engineering, Konkuk University, 268 Chungwon-Daero, Chungju 27478, Korea

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HAE MI CHO

Department of Biomedical Engineering, Konkuk University, 268 Chungwon-Daero, Chungju 27478, Korea

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, and

GYE RAE TACK

Department of Biomedical Engineering, Konkuk University, 268 Chungwon-Daero, Chungju 27478, Korea

E-mail Address: [email protected]

Corresponding author.

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https://doi.org/10.1142/S0219519417400218Cited by:0 (Source: Crossref)

Abstract

Fall is the main cause of activity decline for the elderly. In general, it has been known to be closely related to decline in muscle strength and physical balance. The age profile of the elderly has a very wide range from 60 to 90 or more. Therefore, this study was to determine age-specific risk factors for falling in elderly individuals. Elderly females were included either in the old group ( $<$ 75 years; $n = 35$ , with 11 fallers and 24 nonfallers) or the older group ( $\geq$ 75 years; $n = 36$ , with 14 fallers and 22 nonfallers). The following were assessed and compared between the age-based groups and between fall-based subgroups (fallers and nonfallers within a given age group): height, weight, mental state, balance on the Berg balance scale (BBS), muscle strength of nine muscle groups, and 20 variables of postural sway. The two age-based groups differed significantly in terms of height, weight, balance, and postural sway (total sway area, 95% ellipse area, root mean square, mean distance, and total power); on the other hand, the fall-based subgroups differed only in terms of the median frequency of postural sway. Furthermore, the strength of the hip abductors displayed an interaction effect between age and fall status, and the result of main effect analysis revealed significant differences between fallers from the two age-based groups. These results confirm that extraction of specific factors for each age group is necessary to perform fall detection and prevention studies for the healthy elderly.

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