Simple Fall-Arrest Harness vs. Adjustable Harness

Fall risk increases with age and the fear of falling can significantly impact activity, mobility and future fall risk. Exercise designed specifically to help balance is effective at improving balance and postural control for mobility, gait, and other daily activities. The individual purposes of this research are to (1) effectively use a prototype of an instrumented and actuated harness and support system, (2) demonstrate that this system can be used as designed during induced falls (reactive) and in place gaming (proactive) balance training protocols with the ability to modulate parameters as designed, measurements of harness system are accurate, and resultant output of the system matches intended parameters, and (3) demonstrate that the use of this system can allow provision of and study of varied balance training protocols, including: the measurements of the system, feedback of the system to participants, and the impact of the support parameters of the harness system on the task execution, learning and transfer. Two separate groups of 20 participants (40 total participants) will be studied. The first group will include 20 individuals between the ages of 18 to 40 years old with no history of falls or fear of falling. The first group will complete two sessions of harnessed video gaming balance training. The second group will include older adults over the age of 55 with self-reported falls or the fear of falling. The second group of older adults will complete two sessions of a reactive (slip) training protocol. For both groups, the first session participants will be randomly assigned to use either a standard fall-arrest harness or the new BWS harness system. At the second session, they will switch the harness used. The protocol will involve slips or gaming based balance training, initially of low intensity and then advanced by algorithm based on their response to the trial just prior. This will allow comparison of postural control, perturbation responses, motor learning, and confidence with the system between the two harness types.