| Falls during walking are the primary cause of injuries for older persons and present a high associated cost to society due to the resulting treatment. Hence, the control of balance while moving is an essential issue especially amongst the elderly population. Better understanding of why and how these falls occur could lead to better fall prevention methods, therapies, or devices. These changes could effectively decrease overall emergency room visits, create more room in hospitals for other demands, and decrease medical costs for fall-related disabilities and deaths amongst patients overall. This study will attempt to develop an inverted pendulum model of the single-leg support phase of walking for the sagittal plane. Upon validating the model's use, the model will then be utilized to predict the limits of stability during this walking phase for various conditions including: eyes open with no obstacle, eyes closed with no obstacle, and eyes open with an obstacle. Additionally, these stability regions will then be compared across elderly and young subjects to analyze whether their areas of stability significantly differ. |
