Perturbation Training Reduces Falls in People With Alzheimer's Disease (AD)

Falls can cause injury and death in older adults. Those with Alzheimer's disease are at an even higher fall risk. Our goal is to test if people with mild Alzheimer's disease can learn fall prevention skills from the exposure to large-scale perturbations on a treadmill. Two groups with mild Alzheimer's disease will be enrolled. One group will attend a perturbation training session while the other group receives no training. Groups will then be exposed to perturbations on the ground immediately and three or six months after the training. Over six months after the training, daily-living falls will be tracked for both groups. The falls following the perturbations in the lab and daily-living all-cause falls will be compared between groups to test our specific aims: 1) to test if people with Alzheimer's disease can adapt to large-scale external perturbations and learn fall resistant motor skills; 2) to inspect whether people with Alzheimer's disease can retain motor skills learned in Aim 1; and 3) to determine if people with Alzheimer's disease can generalize fall resistant skills to different contexts (treadmill to overground, inside the lab to outside the lab).

Inclusion criteria

• Participants must be at least 65 years old;
• Participants have a clinical diagnosis of probable AD;
• Participants can read and understand English;
• Participants must be able to walk independently at least 25 feet;
• Participants must be able to stand independently for at least 30 seconds;
• Participants must have a Montreal Cognitive Assessment score of 11-21 or Mini Mental Status Examination score between 18 and 23.

Exclusion criteria

• Individuals have ever experienced perturbation training;
• Individuals have hypotension or uncontrolled hypertension;
• Individuals exhibit osteoporosis;
• Participants suffer from coexisting psychiatric disorders, or other neurological conditions, or injuries, etc.