Skip to main content
Go to the home page of the European Commission (opens in new window)
English en
CORDIS - EU research results
CORDIS

AGING AND BALANCE CONTROL DURING STAIR AND STEP NEGOTIATION

Project description

Training for increased fall risk

As we age, the loss of physical ability and balance control becomes a pressing concern, especially in preventing falls among older individuals. Stair negotiation, a daily activity, often pushes them to their functional limits. With the support of the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions programme, the ABACUSS project takes a groundbreaking approach to address this issue. Through the combined use of body-worn inertial measurement units, electroencephalograms, and electromyography, researchers aim to detect age-related and training-induced changes in balance control in individuals aged 65 and above. The project will assess improvements resulting from a 12-week home-based stair climbing exercise programme, and investigate the role of cortical involvement using analyses of cortico-synergy coherence. These findings promise a better understanding of age-related adaptations, neuromuscular organisation, and cortical involvement.

Objective

Age-related loss of physical ability and balance control are important predictors for falls in older people. Activities of daily life, such as stair negotiation, are challenging as they require older people to operate close to their functional limits. This makes stair negotiation performance a good candidate to detect early-onset deterioration before a fall occurs, as well as a good task-specific exercise modality. To investigate these assumptions, I will first assess the sensitivity of linear and non-linear analyses of data from body-worn inertial measurement units (IMUs) to detect age-related and training-induced changes in balance control of older people (65+ years). These findings will then be applied to assess improvements of balance control and the underlying changes in neuromuscular organisation following a 1-year home-based stair climbing exercise program in older people. Finally, I aim to elucidate the role of cortical involvement in neuromuscular organisation during stair negotiation in older people using electroencephalograms and analyses of muscle synergies obtain from electromyographic signals of the lower limb muscles. This will allow me to assess the level of cortico-synergy coherence and the plastic changes associated with training-induced adaptations in kinematic profiles during stair negotiation. The findings from this project will contribute to a better understanding of age-related and training-induced adaptations in balance control, neuromuscular organisation, and the role of cortical involvement in task-specific adaptations. In addition, the assessments of sensitivity of current and novel analyses of inertial data will help to improve detection of early-onset deterioration of balance performance to better target training interventions at individuals with increased fall risk.

Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)

This project has not yet been classified with EuroSciVoc.
Be the first one to suggest relevant scientific fields and help us improve our classification service

Keywords

Programme(s)

Topic(s)

Funding Scheme

HORIZON-TMA-MSCA-PF-GF - HORIZON TMA MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships - Global Fellowships

See all projects funded under this funding scheme

Call for proposal

(opens in new window) HORIZON-MSCA-2022-PF-01

See all projects funded under this call

Coordinator

STICHTING VU
Net EU contribution
€ 293 203,44
Address
DE BOELELAAN 1105
1081 HV Amsterdam
Netherlands
Activity type
Higher or Secondary Education Establishments
Links
Total cost
No data

Partners (1)