title: Misalignment of the Desired and Measured Center of Pressure Describes Falls Caused by Slip during Turning.
abstract: In this study, desired center of pressure (dCOP) was introduced to evaluate dynamic postural stability. The dCOP is defined as a virtual point on the ground, where the moment around the body center of mass (COM) becomes zero when dCOP and the measured COP (mCOP) coincide. We hypothesized that, when the misalignment of the dCOP and mCOP (dCOP-mCOP) increases up to a certain value due to a large perturbation during walking, it becomes difficult to make a compensatory step and to recover balance of COM and to continue gait. Here we tested this hypothesis in slipping during turning. The study involved twelve healthy young adult males with an average age of 21.5±1.9 yrs. The subjects were asked to (1) walk straight and turn 60 degrees to the right with the right foot (spin turn) on a dry floor surface, and (2) walk straight and 60 degrees spin turn to the right on a slippery lubricated surface. The dCOP-mCOP during turning in the slip trial with fall were significantly larger, particularly in x-direction (i.e., the medial-lateral direction during straight walk), than that in no-slip trial and slip trial without fall. The receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis indicated that the dCOP-mCOP in x-direction is good indicator of falling (area under the curve (AUC) = 0.93) and the threshold in the dCOP-mCOP in x-direction to distinguish for fall or no-fall was 0.55 m. These results support our hypothesis in slipping during turning.
authors.affiliation: Graduate School of Engineering, Tohoku University, Sendai, Miyagi, Japan.|Graduate School of Biomedical Engineering, Tohoku University, Sendai, Miyagi, Japan.
authors.forename: Takeshi
authors.identifier: 0000-0002-5063-9924
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Yamaguchi
authors.affiliation: Graduate School of Engineering, Tohoku University, Sendai, Miyagi, Japan.
authors.forename: Hironari
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Higuchi
authors.affiliation: Photon Science Center and Department of Electronic Engineering, School of Engineering, The University of Tokyo, Bukyo-ku, Tokyo, Japan.
authors.forename: Hiroshi
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Onodera
authors.affiliation: Graduate School of Engineering, Tohoku University, Sendai, Miyagi, Japan.
authors.forename: Kazuo
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Hokkirigawa
authors.affiliation: Rehabilitation Engineering Laboratory, Institute of Biomaterials and Biomedical Engineering, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.|Rehabilitation Engineering Laboratory, Lyndhurst Centre, Toronto Rehabilitation Institute - University Health Network, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
authors.forename: Kei
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Masani
mesh_terms: D000058:Accidental Falls / Q000517:prevention & control* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D001696:Biomechanical Phenomena; D005260:Female; D005430:Floors and Floorcoverings; D005684:Gait / Q000502:physiology*; D006112:Gravitation; D006801:Humans; D008153:Lubrication; D008297:Male; D004856:Postural Balance / Q000502:physiology*; D012372:ROC Curve; D016138:Walking / Q000502:physiology* / Q000523:psychology; D055815:Young Adult