Immediate effect of Sideways treadmill task on Reaction time, Response Inhibition and Accuracy of side-stepping strategy in Older adults

A fall is an unintentional event where a person ends up on the ground or another lower level. Internal perturbations are voluntary movements that alter the position of one or more body segments, potentially disrupting posture and balance. A video analysis found that 41% of falls among older adults in long-term care were due to inappropriate weight shifts, typically occurring when individuals attempted to quickly adjust during self-imposed changes in planned movements. Response inhibition, or inhibitory control, refers to the ability to regulate attention, behavior, thoughts, or emotions to override impulsive responses and instead act in a more appropriate or needed way. This can be assessed using a Go/No-Go paradigm. Older adults often struggle with response inhibition, which leads to difficulties stopping incorrect movements and selecting appropriate stepping strategies. This challenge may stem from changes in how older adults process stimuli and plan movements, contributing to delayed reaction times. Overground sideways walking has been shown to improve walking speed, reduce timed up-and-go scores, and lessen the fear of falling in healthy older adults, but it reduces the occurrence of anticipatory postural adjustments and stepping task planning. Treadmill training, on the other hand, activates the central gait pattern generator and enhances motor learning, but it doesn’t provide opportunities for APA, making step responses more reliant on higher-order cognitive processes. There is limited research on using treadmill training to assess or improve response inhibition, and even less on its use for improving perturbation performance. This study aims to use treadmill tasks to enhance perturbation responses.