NCT06571526

External Focus Strategy on Visuomotor Control in Older Adults

Investigating Visual Search Strategies and the Role of Attentional Focus During Psychomotor Gait Re-education in Older Adults at Risk of Falling: Implication for Fall Rehabilitation

• Status: Completed
• Phase: N/A
• Study type: Interventional
• Enrollment: 112 (actual)
• Sponsor: The Hong Kong Polytechnic University · Academic / Other
• Sex: All
• Age: 65 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Accepted

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.

Conditions

• Gait
• Fall Risk
• Older Adults

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
BEHAVIORAL	External focus	The training phase consisted of 20 consecutive training trials, with a rest interval of at least 30 seconds between trials. All participants had to circumvent an obstacle during each trial on the 8-m level-ground walkway. During each trial, the general instruction was to focus on a random series of digits ranging from 0 to 9 displayed on monitors placed at the immediate and future destinations of the walkway. Each number was displayed for at least 2 seconds to allow participants to have sufficient time to read them.
BEHAVIORAL	Control	The training phase consisted of 20 consecutive training trials, with a rest interval of at least 30 seconds between trials. All participants had to circumvent an obstacle during each trial on the 8-m level-ground walkway. During each trial, the general instruction was to walk to the end of the walkway at your natural pace.

Timeline

• Start date: 2021-10-01
• Primary completion: 2023-06-30
• Completion: 2023-06-30
• First posted: 2024-08-26
• Last updated: 2024-08-26

Locations

1 site across 1 country: Hong Kong