Prevention of Potential Falls of Elderly Healthy Women: Gait Asymmetry

The study attempted to see if exercise training would alleviate gait asymmetry between nondominant and dominant legs, thus, eliminate the likelihood of slips. The present study provided 18 older adults exercise training for eight weeks and evaluated kinematics and ground reaction forces (GRFs) in both legs. Participants were randomly assigned to balance, weight, or control group. Each group met three times a week for eight weeks. Their pretraining and posttraining kinematic and GRFs data were taken while walking. Data analyses were performed in 2 (Time; pre and post) × 3 (Group; weight, balance, and control) × 2 (Leg; dominant and nondominant) mixed factor repeated measure ANOVA. The results indicated that nondominant legs' heel contact velocity decreased more in comparison to dominant legs' as the knee strength improved. Additionally, factors (PFz and RCOF) contributing to the likelihood of slips were improved after training in nondominant legs. The present study suggested that, after the training, asymmetrical gait or limb patterns could be alleviated, and this outcome may contribute to reductions in the likelihood of slips.