Good control of trunk and pelvic movements is necessary for well controlled leg movements required to perform activities of daily living. The nature of movement coupling between the trunk and pelvis varies and depends on the type of activity. Children with cerebral palsy often have reduced ability to modulate coupling between the trunk and pelvis but movement patterns of the pelvis can be improved by training. The aim of this study was to examine how pelvis to trunk coupling changed while playing a computer game driven by pelvic rotations.

Falls sustained when descending stairs are the leading cause of accidental death in older adults. Highly visible edge highlighters/friction strips (often set back from the tread edge) are sometimes used to improve stair safety, but there is no evidence for the usefulness of either. To determine whether an edge highlighter and its location relative to the tread edge affect foot placement/clearance and accidental foot contacts when descending stairs. Sixteen older adults (mean±1SD age; 71±7years) with normal vision (experiment 1) and eight young adults (mean±1SD age; 24±4years) with visual impairment due to simulated age-related cataract (experiment 2) completed step descent trials during which a high contrast edge highlighter was either not present, placed flush with the tread edge, or set back from the edge by 10mm or 30mm. Foot placement/clearance and the number of accidental foot contacts were compared across conditions. In experiment 1, a highlighter set back by 30mm led to a reduction in final foot placement (p<0.001) and foot clearance (p<0.001) compared to a highlighter placed flush with the tread edge, and the percentage of foot clearances that were less than 5mm increased from 2% (abutting) to 17% (away30). In experiment 2, a highlighter placed flush with the tread edge led to a decrease in within-subject variability in final foot placement (p=0.004) and horizontal foot clearance (p=0.022), a decrease in descent duration (p=0.009), and a decrease in the number of low clearances (<5mm, from 8% to 0%) and the number of accidental foot contacts (15% to 3%) when compared to a tread edge with no highlighter present. Changes to foot clearance parameters as a result of highlighter presence and position suggest that stairs with high-contrast edge highlighters positioned flush with the tread edge will improve safety on stairs, particularly for those with age-related visual impairment.

Purpose: A recent randomised controlled trial indicated that providing long‐term multifocal wearers with a pair of distance single‐vision spectacles for use outside the home reduced falls risk in active older people. However, it also found that participants disliked continually switching between using two pairs of glasses and adherence to the intervention was poor. In this study we determined whether intermediate addition multifocals (which could be worn most of the time inside and outside the home and thus avoid continual switching) could provide similar gait safety on stairs to distance single vision spectacles whilst also providing adequate ‘short‐term’ reading and near vision. Methods: Fourteen healthy long‐term multifocal wearers completed stair ascent and descent trials over a 3‐step staircase wearing intermediate and full addition bifocals and progression‐addition lenses ( PAL s) and single‐vision distance spectacles. Gait safety/caution was assessed using foot clearance measurements (toe on ascent, heel on descent) over the step edges and ascent and descent duration. Binocular near visual acuity, critical print size and reading speed were measured using Bailey‐Lovie near charts and MNR ead charts at 40 cm. Results: Gait safety/caution measures were worse with full addition bifocals and PAL s compared to intermediate bifocals and PAL s. The intermediate PAL s provided similar gait ascent/descent measures to those with distance single‐vision spectacles. The intermediate addition PAL s also provided good reading ability: Near word acuity and MNR ead critical print size were better with the intermediate addition PAL s than with the single‐vision lenses ( p < 0.0001), with a mean near visual acuity of 0.24 ± 0.13 log MAR (~N5.5) which is satisfactory for most near vision tasks when performed for a short period of time. Conclusions: The better ability to ‘spot read’ with the intermediate addition PAL s compared to single‐vision spectacles suggests that elderly individuals might better comply with the use of intermediate addition PAL s outside the home. A lack of difference in gait parameters for the intermediate addition PAL s compared to distance single‐vision spectacles suggests they could be usefully used to help prevent falls in older well‐adapted full addition PAL wearers. A randomised controlled trial to investigate the usefulness of intermediate multifocals in preventing falls seems warranted.

This study examined stepping accuracy, gaze behavior, and state-anxiety in children with (N = 21, age M = 10.81, SD = 1.89) and without (N = 18, age M = 11.39, SD = 2.06) developmental coordination disorder (DCD) during an adaptive locomotion task. Participants walked at a self-selected pace along a pathway, placing their foot into a raised rectangular floor-based target box followed by either no obstacles, one obstacle, or two obstacles. Stepping kinematics and accuracy were determined using three-dimensional motion capture, whilst gaze was determined using mobile eye-tracking equipment. The children with DCD displayed greater foot placement error and variability when placing their foot within the target box and were more likely to make contact with its edges than their typically developing (TD) peers. The DCD group also displayed greater variability in the length and width of their steps in the approach to the target box. No differences were observed between groups in any of the gaze variables measured, in mediolateral velocity of the center of mass during the swing phase into the target box, or in the levels of self-reported state-anxiety experienced prior to facing each task. We therefore provide the first quantifiable evidence that deficits to foot placement accuracy and precision may be partially responsible for the increased incidence of trips and falls in DCD, and that these deficits are likely to occur independently from gaze behavior and state-anxiety.