Article

Restoring movement fluency is a key focus for physical
rehabilitation; it's measurement, however, lacks objectivity. The purpose of this
study was to find whether measurable movement fluency variables differed between
groups of adults with different movement abilities whilst performing the
sit-to-walk (STW) movement. The movement fluency variables were: (1) hesitation
during movement (reduction in forward velocity of the centre of mass; CoM), (2)
coordination (percentage of temporal overlap of joint rotations) and (3)
smoothness (number of inflections in the CoM jerk signal). METHODS: Kinematic
data previously collected for another study were extracted for three groups:
older adults (n=18), older adults at risk of falling (OARF, n=18), and younger
adults (n=20). Each subject performed the STW movement freely while a motion
analysis system tracked 11 body segments. The fluency variables were derived from
the processed kinematic data and tested for group variation using analysis of
variance. FINDINGS: All three variables showed statistically significant
differences among the groups. Hesitation (F=15.11, p<0.001) was greatest in the
OARF 47.5% (SD 18.0), compared to older adults 30.3% (SD 15.9) and younger adults
20.8% (SD 11.4). Co-ordination (F=44.88, p<0.001) was lowest for the OARF (6.93%,
SD 10.99) compared to both the young (31.21%, SD 5.48) and old (26.24%, SD 5.84).
Smoothness (F=35.96, p<0.001) was best in the younger adults, 18.3 (SD 5.2)
inflections, compared to the old, 42.5 (SD 11.5) and OARF, 44.25 (SD 7.29).
INTERPRETATION: Hesitation, co-ordination and smoothness may be valid indicators
of movement fluency in adults, with important consequences for research and
clinical practice.
CI - Copyright (c) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Langue : ANGLAIS