title: Intensity and generalization of treadmill slip training: High or low, progressive increase or decrease?
abstract: The purpose of this study was to investigate the efficacy of different treadmill slip training protocols on the transfer of reactive and proactive control of center of mass stability to a novel, over-ground slip. Four training protocols were investigated: high-intensity (HI; acceleration of all treadmill slips=12m/s(2)), low-intensity (LO; acceleration of all treadmill slips=6m/s(2)), progressively increasing intensity (INCR; acceleration of treadmill slips increasing from 6m/s(2) to 12m/s(2) over the course of training), and progressively decreasing intensity (DECR; acceleration of treadmill slips decreasing from 12m/s(2) to 6m/s(2) over the course of training). From a pool of 36 young subjects, nine were randomly assigned to each training protocol (HI, LO, INCR, and DECR). In each protocol, subjects underwent a series of 24 treadmill slips before they experienced a novel slip during over-ground walking. Measures from these subjects were compared across groups and to data from control subjects (CTRL, n=9) who had experienced a novel over-ground slip without treadmill training as part of a previous experiment. The results showed that treadmill slip training improved balance control on over-ground slip and had a larger effect on subjects׳ reactive control of stability (44.3%) than on proactive control (27.1%) in comparison with the CTRL group. HI yielded stronger generalization than LO, while INCR was only marginally better than DECR. Finally, the group means of stability displayed a clear ascending order from CTRL, LO, DECR, INCR, to HI.
authors.affiliation: Department of Physical Therapy, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL 60612, USA.
authors.forename: Xuan
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.affiliation: Department of Physical Therapy, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL 60612, USA.
authors.forename: Tanvi
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Bhatt
authors.affiliation: Department of Physical Therapy, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL 60612, USA. Electronic address: cpai@uic.edu.
authors.forename: Yi-Chung Clive
authors.initials: YC
authors.lastname: Pai
mesh_terms: D000054:Acceleration; D000058:Accidental Falls / Q000517:prevention & control*; D000222:Adaptation, Physiological; D000328:Adult; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D016138:Walking / Q000502:physiology*; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Generalization; Motor learning; Perturbation; Proactive; Reactive; Stability