A Treadmill Training Program Augmented by Virtual Reality to Decrease Fall Risk in Older Adults

Summary

The proposed randomized controlled trial will evaluate the effects of treadmill training augmented with virtual reality on fall risk.

300 older adults with a history of falls will be recruited to participate in this study. This will include older adults (n=100), patients with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) (n=100), and patients with Parkinson's disease (PD)(n=100). Subjects will be randomly assigned to the intervention group (treadmill training with virtual reality) or to the active-control group (treadmill training without virtual reality). Each person will participate in a training program set in an outpatient setting 3 times per week for 6 weeks. Assessments will take place before, after, and 1 month and 6 months after the completion of the training.

Conditions

• Elderly Adults
• Parkinson
• Mild Cognitive Disorder

Interventions

OTHER

TT+VR

subjects will be walking on a treadmill while negotiating virtual obstacles provided by a computer simulation. The virtual environment will consist of obstacles, different pathways, narrow corridors and distracters, requiring modulations of step amplitude in two planes (i.e., height and width) coordinated with walking behaviour. The speed, orientation, size, frequency of appearance and shape of the targets will be manipulated according to individual needs following a standardized protocol.

OTHER

TT alone

The participants will walk on the treadmill, their gait speed over-ground will be measured at the beginning of each week of training. Progression will include increasing the duration of each of the walking bouts and increasing walking speed.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• Newcastle University

  collaborator OTHER

• University Medical Center Nijmegen

  collaborator OTHER

• Universita degli Studi di Genova

  collaborator OTHER

• KU Leuven

  collaborator OTHER

• Tel-Aviv Sourasky Medical Center

  lead OTHER_GOV

Principal Investigators

• Jeffrey M Hausdorff, PhD · Tel-Aviv Sourasky Medical Center

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

TREATMENT

Masking

SINGLE

Model

PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age

60 Years

Max Age

85 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

No

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2012-11-30

Primary Completion

2015-04-30

Completion

2015-12-31

Countries

• Belgium
• Israel
• Italy
• Netherlands
• United Kingdom

Study Locations