Conscious movement processing induces internal limb focus, disrupting automatic movement control and potentially hampering feedforward visual planning and movement stability. These effects might be mitigated by strategy of focusing externally. We investigate the effects of an external focus intervention on gait stability and gaze behaviour between older adults with different conscious movement processing propensities during adaptive locomotion. Thirty-eight older adults (mean age=70.4±3.7) were analysed. Participants were divided into Low Reinvestor Group (LRG;n=19) or High Reinvestor Group (HRG;n=19), by median split of the Chinese version of Movement Specific Reinvestment Scale, which assessed conscious movement processing propensity. Participants performed 20 walking trials with external focus instructions as the intervention, navigating an obstacle along a walkway at self-selected pace. Gait stability (variabilities of spatial and temporal gait parameters) and gaze behaviour (fixation duration percentage on specific area of interests) were assessed pre- and post-intervention. We observed significant main effect of time for both gait stability and gaze behaviour. Both LRG and HRG demonstrated significantly fewer variabilities in body sway, stride time, double-support time, stance time, swing time, stride length, step length, step width, in addition to significantly reduced percentage of fixation duration percentage on ground and increased percentage on destination post-intervention (all p<0.05). The external focus strategy appears to be beneficial for improving gait stability and gaze behaviour in the older population. Such benefits might be independent from conscious movement processing propensities. Further research is warranted to optimise the implementation of an external focus strategy as part of gait rehabilitation in clinical practice.

Authors:
Thomson Wai-Lung Wong, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, China
Toby C.T. Mak, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, China
Melody C.Y. Leung, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, China
Shamay S.M. Ng, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, China

About the Presenter(s)
Dr Wai Lung, Thomson Wong is a University Assistant Professor/Lecturer at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University in China

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