Slow down, seniors!
It may be time to take it easy on your feet after a new study revealed older adults are more prone to falling if they do not slow their walking speed when their vision is impaired. Despite being a small study, researcher Fiona Newell of Trinity College in Dublin looked at five older adults who had fallen at least once in the past year, six older adults who had not fallen and six younger adults.
It may be time to take it easy on your feet after a new study revealed older adults are more prone to falling if they do not slow their walking speed when their vision is impaired.
Despite being a small study, researcher Fiona Newell of Trinity College in Dublin and her colleagues looked at five older adults who had fallen at least once in the past year, six older adults who had not fallen and six younger adults.
Participants’ walking pace was carefully monitored under normal conditions and again after they wore goggles that caused blurred vision.
Unsurprisingly, the walking ability of all three groups was affected by the blurred vision, but it was particularly seen in the ‘fall-prone’ older adults.
While this group was more likely to fall as a result of blurred vision, the younger adults and the older adults who had not fallen took the strategy of slowing their walking speed, whereas the fall-prone older adults did not.
Researchers also discovered the fall-prone participants made more errors in returning to the starting point of the walking course.
Published in the current issue of the journal, Insight: Research and Practice in Visual Impairment and Blindness, the findings indicated that the ability to “collect and process” the visual information needed to navigate the surrounding environment was more severely impaired in fall-prone older adults than in older adults who had not fallen.
About 30% of British adults over the age of 65 years fall at least once a year and 12% of these seniors fall at least twice a year, according to the researchers.
How stable would you be if you wore goggles while taking the walking test? Share your thoughts by commenting in the box below.
