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Maintaining balance is a crucial daily skill, and impairments in postural control increase the risk of falls, particularly among older adults. This study aimed to assess the effect of attentional control on postural stability in young and older adults. The sample consisted of 43 participants (16 older adults, 12 women; 27 young adults, 13 women). Participants performed a series of 60-second standing trials on an AMTI posturographic platform. The protocol included four control trials (quiet standing), two dual-task trials (cognitive task: digit counting), and two biofeedback trials (visual tracking of the Center of Pressure [COP] on a screen), with standardized rest intervals.
The AMTI platform generates over 30 quantitative variables related to COP trajectory. Given the complex covariance structures of these variables, dimensionality reduction techniques were applied. Specifically, correlation analysis and Principal Component Analysis (PCA) were utilized to extract principal components describing postural dynamics and stability. Subsequently, statistical tests, including nonparametric multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA), were employed to examine the effects of age, gender, and experimental condition on these reduced components.
Preliminary results indicate that PCA effectively identifies the primary dimensions of postural variability, specifically those related to movement amplitude, path dynamics, and directional asymmetry. Further analysis is currently underway to fully quantify the interaction effects between age groups and attentional conditions.
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