Comparison of over-ground and treadmill perturbations for simulation of real-world slips and trips: A systematic review

Background: Trips and slips increase fall risk for young and older adults. To examine recovery responses, studies utilized treadmill and/or over-ground methods to simulate real-world perturbations. However, differences in the recovery response between treadmill and over-ground perturbations remain unexamined.Research question: To assess the current literature on the reactive recovery responses between over -ground-and split-belt treadmill trips and slips as well as the effect of aging on these responses. Methods: PubMed, Medline, Web of Science, SCOPUS, and Cochrane databases were searched for publications examining trips and slips in healthy young, healthy older adults, and older adults who fall. Included articles were in English, full-text accessible, and biomechanically quantified the reactive recovery responses for slips and trips during either over-ground or split-belt treadmill protocols. The initial database search yielded 1075 articles and 31 articles were included after title, abstract, and full-text screening.Results: For slips, 7 articles utilized lubricated surfaces while 5 articles used treadmills. Further, 3 studies examined differences between older and younger adults. For trips, 9 articles utilized obstacles and 7 used treadmills. Further, 4 articles examined differences between older and young adults and 1 article only examined older adults during over-ground trips. For both perturbations, treadmill and over-ground protocols demonstrated similar anteroposterior destabilization on the center of mass. In the mediolateral direction, over-ground slips consistently found a lateral destabilization while treadmill articles did not examine this direction. Foot place-ment recovery responses varied less for both perturbation directions on a treadmill compared to over-ground. Significance: Although treadmill and over-ground perturbations destabilize the center of mass similarly, the re-covery response to these perturbations were different on treadmills. Specifically, recovery responses were more consistent for both slips and trips on treadmills. As older adults have difficulty in perturbation recovery scaling, treadmills may be limited in their ability to investigate the variety of aging impairments on perturbation re-covery responses.

Automated summary

This study evaluated the current literature on the reactive recovery responses between over-ground and split-belt treadmill trips and slips, as well as the effect of aging on these responses. The results showed that although both treadmill and over-ground perturbations destabilize the center of mass similarly, the recovery responses to these perturbations were more consistent on treadmills. However, treadmills may be limited in investigating the variety of aging impairments on perturbation recovery responses due to the difficulties older adults face in perturbation recovery scaling.