story by Claire Miller
For older adults, falling presents a major risk to their quality of life.
This is especially true for adults with Alzheimer’s disease, a brain disorder that affects a person’s memory, thinking skills and behavior.
“Falls can lead to serious consequences for people with Alzheimer’s disease, including physical injuries, loss of independence and mental distress, which collectively compromise the quality of life for this population,” said Feng Yang, associate professor in the College of Education & Human Development’s Department of Kinesiology and Health. “In addition, falls can pose a heavy economic burden on individuals, caregivers and the healthcare system.”
Yang is the principal investigator on a $429,000 National Institutes of Health grant to study how fall prevention training for adults with Alzheimer’s can teach them fall resistant motor skills.
In his study, Yang has recruited older adults with mild Alzheimer’s disease and divided them into two groups: One group that participates in a perturbation training-based program and one that doesn’t.
For the training group, participants are put into a safety harness and the treadmill will randomly cause unexpected slips or trips while they’re standing or walking on it. The control group that doesn’t participate in the training program walks on the treadmill for the same amount of time as the training group, but they don’t experience any slips or trips.
Then, six months later, participants come back for a retest session: They are put back in the safety harnesses and experience slips and trips on the treadmill.
Yang uses the data he collects in these sessions to help determine if the initial training sessions made an impact on the adults’ ability to resist falling in the retest session.
“This training forces the trainees to encounter the falling process in a safe environment. After the training, the brain could redevelop the fall-resistant skills that may have been lost to disease-related brain damage,” he explained. “This lab-based training paradigm mimics the main causes of falls in everyday living conditions. Therefore, it is an effective treatment for avoiding falls.”
Though his study is still ongoing, Yang has seen some positive results for participants.
“Based on the available data from participants who have completed this study, we found that people with early Alzheimer’s disease likely have the capability to quickly adapt to repeated perturbated trials by adjusting their body posture or improving their recovery step strategy,” he explained. “This indicates that people with early Alzheimer’s disease may be able to learn new motor skills which can reduce their fall risk. As more participants are enrolled, we will have additional data and evidence to further test our hypotheses.”
Researchers are still seeking participants with mild Alzheimer’s disease for this project. If you or someone you know may be interested in this study, please contact Yang at [email protected].