HeiMOVE

Understanding decline in motion and balance with ageing & frailty

Principal Investigator: Dr. Lizeth Sloot

Funder: Carl Zeiss Foundation (Germany). Part of: HEIAGE project; PI: Katja Mombaur, KIT), NUAcT fellowship (Newcastle University)

Collaborating institutions: University of Stuttgart (M Millard), University of Antwerp (T van Criekinge), Heidelberg University (C Werner), Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (T Gerhardy, K Mombaur)

Our study aims to:

Silhouette of a person jumping into a hole or trampoline.
A white silhouette of a person walking with a cane. 
Develop and use more accurate measures of balance
Understand the relation between motion and balance decline with ageing and frailty

Our Methods

Diagram of a pyramid of 12 human icons, with men and women, arranged in five rows on a black background.
A simplified illustration of four stages of human movement, from standing to turning, depicted with white figures on a black background. The first figure is walking upright, the second is sitting on a chair, the third is slightly bent forward, and the fourth is turning with an arrow indicating rotation. 
Go beyond the standard gait analysis and examine different daily movements: walking, standing up, sitting down, turning, Figure 8, TUG
Collected motion and foot-force data in a large cohort of people across the lifespan
Silhouette of a person walking on a circular platform with a black background. 
Developed dynamic balance analysis for standing up and sitting down movements

Impact

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A black background with multiple white line graphs and shaded areas representing data trends across unknown variables. 
Published a large dataset of walking in 138 people across the lifespan;  dataset across movements is in preparation
Shown that decline in walking force appeared before changes in leg motion (paper)
Decline in balance and motion strategies with ageing and frailty across movements is currently under investigation
Shown that trunk movement declines from 60 years, and earlier in females (paper)
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