Development of a treadmill system to evaluate ambulation and balance ability

• Main Authors: Yu-Hsuan Chang, 張佑萱
• Other Authors: Wen-Hsu Sung
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2010
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/46300858427856459143

碩士 === 國立陽明大學 === 物理治療暨輔助科技學系 === 98 === Backgroung and purpose：Falls and fall-induced injuries are common events in elderly people. Due to medical improvement and decrement in mortality, aging population raise in the world. Some physiologic changes are related to aging, e.g. age-related changes in walking patterns. A large proportion of elderly falls occur when walking because of age-related changes in walking patterns, and it may induced potential postural balance control problem. Therefore, there’re a lot of studies focused on how to prevent falls and decrease injuries recently.Treadmill is an effective tool used to evaluate and train people who have problems in ambulation. Treadmill can measure basic parameters of gait, however, those parameters can only offer the information of whole body mobility but can’t provide any information about stability during walking.The purpose of this study was to develop a computer-based manual treadmill system to evaluate ambulation and balance ability. Methods：Sixty-two subjects were recruited in this study, including twenty-five healthy young adults, twenty-two healthy elderly people and fifteen faller elderly people. All people need to receive twice walking evaluation tests, and the elderly subjects have to receive questionnaires in addition. Statistical analysis：Independent sample t-test and chi-square were used to analyze all subjects’ basic data. Independent sample t-test was used to compare gait and COP measurements of adults and elderly groups. The statistically significant level was set at 0.05. Discussion：Although no significance was found between the healthy young and healthy elderly people in gait parameters, balance parameters all have significance (p<0.05). And significance were found between the healthy elder and faller elderly people in gait and balance parameters (p<0.05). Conclusion：Computer-based manual treadmill system can be used to evaluate ambulation and balance ability regardless of people in different age level.