Article

The purposes of this study were 1) to investigate the effect of visual
deprivation on stability during treadmill walking in older and young adults, and
2) to examine if such an effect differs between age groups. Under the protection
of a safety harness, 10 young (23.20+/-2.44years) and six older adults
(67.83+/-2.48years) participants performed two 90-s walking trials (one with eyes
open or EO and the other with eyes closed or EC) at their self-selected treadmill
walking speeds determined during EO walking. The step length, step width, foot
landing angle, the duration of stance phase, and cadence were calculated from the
foot kinematics collected for each participant. The variability (i.e., the
standard deviation) of step length, step width, foot landing angle, and the
duration of stance phase was also calculated to quantify the stability during
walking. Our results revealed that both young and older adults took a cautious
gait pattern during EC walking, as evidenced by the shorter step length, smaller
foot landing angle and shortened stance phase compared to EO walking. Under both
visual conditions, older adults exhibited shorter step length and smaller foot
landing angle than their young counterparts. No age-related differences were
observed for the measurements of variability (i.e., the quantification of
stability) while the variability measurement of all four variables was higher
during EC walking than during EO walking for both age groups. Findings from this
study could provide insights into the mechanisms of how visual information
affects stability during gait.
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