Effect of walking speed on Inter-Segmental Coordination in Elderly People with and without a History of Falling

Knowledge about inter-segmental coordination (ISC) during challenging walking conditions provides insight into the adaptability of central nervous system for controlling human gait. Particularly, this is an important issue in elderly people who are a large population of the society and are at risk of multiple falls while walking. The aim of our study was to evaluate the effects of speed of walking on variability and phase dynamics of inter-segmental coordination in elderly people with and without a history of falls.
Twenty non-faller and 12 faller people participated in this study. They were asked to perform three walking trials on a treadmill, including walking at three paces (preferred, slower and faster). Deviation phase (DP) and mean absolute relative phase (MARP) values (indicators of variability and phase dynamic of ISC, respectively) were calculated.
The results showed that the main effects of walking speed were significant on pelvis-thigh, thigh-shank and shank-foot DPs. DP values were significantly higher during slower walking speed compared to preferred and fast walking speeds (p Our findings indicated that aging leads to increased ISC while falling and faster walking could result in a decreased ISC variability. Furthermore, falling and faster walking could make the dynamic of ISC more in-phase which may be a possible strategy to reduce the control effort by the controller system.