Environmental constraints for improving motor flexibility during obstacle crossing in older adults

An age-related decline in motor flexibility, which is the ability to synergistically control the degrees of freedom of the body to ensure stable performance of a task, is a factor that contributes to falls. We investigated whether providing environmental constraints to increase the movement repertoire (i.e., the motor solution that works to achieve one's goal), in combination with aiming at precise control of the performance, would be effective for improving motor flexibility, and whether the effect on the leading limb would extend to the trailing limb.

Fifteen older adults (75.1 ± 6.2 years and 14 younger adults (34.6 ± 5.0 years) performed under three walking conditions: walking normally and crossing the obstacle (normal), walking and crossing the obstacle with constraints of foot placement after stepping over it (constrained), and walking and crossing the obstacle with constraints as in the constrained condition, in addition to aiming for maintaining a constant clearance height at the moment of obstacle crossing (precision). An uncontrolled manifold analysis was used to quantify motor flexibility as the synergy index. The foot height at the moment of obstacle crossing was used as the performance variable and seven segmental angles were used as the elemental variables. A higher synergy index indicates greater motor flexibility.

For the leading limb, the synergy index was significantly higher under the precision condition than those under the other conditions. This suggests that not only providing environmental constraints but also keeping constant the performance variable is critical to improving motor flexibility. Moreover, the effects of an increase in the synergy index in the leading limb extended to the trailing limb.

Providing environmental constraints to increase the movement repertoire while also aiming for precision in the performance variable was an effective method of improving motor flexibility during obstacle crossing for older adults.