External Focus Strategy on Visuomotor Control in Older Adults

Not Applicable

Completed

• Conditions: Gait; Fall Risk; Older Adults
• Interventions: Behavioral: External focus; Behavioral: Control

• Registration Number: NCT06571526
• Lead Sponsor: The Hong Kong Polytechnic University

Brief Summary

Only a few studies have adopted external focus strategy as an intervention to mitigate the negative effects of heightened conscious movement processing in older adults. The goal was to investigate whether a single-session intervention (SSI) using external focus strategy could improve gait stability and visual search behaviors during adaptive locomotion among the older population.

Participants were randomly allocated to either an external focus (EXT) or a control group (CON). All participants performed an obstacle circumvention walking task along an 8-m walkway for five trials at pre-intervention (T0), post-intervention (T1), and retention (T2). The training phase included 20 walking trials. EXT focused on digits displayed on monitors at their path destinations, while CON walked naturally without any manipulation.

Detailed Description

Not available

Study Timeline

• Study Start: 2021-10-01
• Primary Completion: 2023-06-30
• Study Completion: 2023-06-30
• Status Verified: 2024-08
• Study First Submitted: 2024-08-21
• Study First Submitted QC: 2024-08-23
• Last Update Submitted: 2024-08-23
• Study First Posted: 2024-08-26
• Last Update Posted: 2024-08-26

Recruitment & Eligibility

• Status: COMPLETED
• Sex: All
• Target Recruitment: 112

Inclusion Criteria

• aged 65 or above
• were able to walk independently indoors without walking aids

Exclusion Criteria

• a total score of less than 24 on the Chinese version of the Mini-Mental State Examination
• a static visual acuity poorer than 20/40 vision
• the presence of any untreated cerebral vascular disease, Parkinson's disease, or any other major neurological deficit

Study & Design

• Study Type: INTERVENTIONAL
• Study Design: PARALLEL

Arm && Interventions

Group	Intervention	Description
EXT	External focus	-
CON	Control	-

Primary Outcome Measures

Name	Time	Method
Gait stability	pre-test, post-test (the same day, immediately after the single-session intervention), 1 week after post-test (retention)	Measured by a 3-D motion-capture system. Indicated by the variabilities of temporal and spatial gait parameters
Visual search behavior	pre-test, post-test (the same day, immediately after the single-session intervention), 1 week after post-test (retention)	Measured by eye tracker.; Indicated by: number of fixation (%) on ground number of fixation (%) on destination number of fixation (%) on obstacle number of fixation (%) on random areas fixation duration (%) on ground fixation duration (%) on destination fixation duration (%) on obstacle fixation duration (%) on random areas

Trial Locations

Locations (1)

The Hong Kong Polytechnic University; 🇭🇰 Hong Kong, Hong Kong