Biomechanics of gait in elderly: A literatur review

The aging is associated with extensive changes in physiological and biomechanical factors such as the breakdown and reduction of muscle function. Identifying and controlling the negative effects caused by these changes can help improve the quality of life of the elderly and reduce treatment costs. The aim of this study is to investigate the biomechanical changes of walking among elderly people. In this review, all quantitative and qualitative full-text articles with the keywords including elderly and walking, gait, aging and Geriatrics were considered. Data collection was done using "Data Extraction Form" which was designed based on the purpose of the research. Articles were searched in reliable databases such as Mendely pub med, Science Direct, Pub Med, Scopus, Google Scholar springerlink, SID by searching keywords. ۱۹۸۵ articles regarding biomechanical parameters of walking were found after studying and removing articles with similar results and articles related to treatment protocols from the total of articles, ۱۲ articles are directly related to the topic. The results of our studies showed that changes will occur in both kinetics and walking kinematics in the old age. Due to the lack of neuromuscular and skeletal capacity, and weakness in aspects of balance, coordination and posture control, the elderly tend to perform compensatory strategies and altered movement patterns in walking, which lead to some changes in kinematic and kinetic characteristics. Fall prevention is important for better life expectancy and sustainable health care systems. According to the conducted studies, it can be said that the young and elderly groups always use different muscle activity patterns in different phases of walking, young and healthy people due to having better muscle strength and shorter reaction time than compensatory mechanisms for prevention They benefit from falling and damage. Meanwhile, even when in good physical health, older people naturally experience a decline in walking ability compared to normal people.

Keywords:

elderly , aging , geriatrics , gait , walking , biomechanics , Kinetics , kinematics