CHAIR RISE STRATEGY IN THE FUNCTIONALLY IMPAIRED ELDERLY

Many elderly people have difficulty with the common functional activit y of rising from a chair. Previous work has identified different strat egies that are used to assist the young, the healthy elderly, and the functionally impaired elderly subjects in this activity. For the young and the healthy elderly, modification of these strategies with decrea sed chair height has been examined. This study examined the changes in chair rise strategy in 18 moderately functionally impaired elderly, w hen rising from their lowest successful chair compared to a chair of k nee height, significantly decreased their mean center of mass/base of support (COM/BOS) separation at lift-off (1.96 cm, p < 0.05). These al terations in strategy suggests that while the functionally impaired by increasing their hip flexion velocity, they simultaneously attempt to increase their stability by taking more simultaneously attempt to inc rease their stability by taking more time to rise and shortening the d istance between their COM/BOS at lift-off. These changes suggest a mor e conservative strategy with increased difficulty, resulting in decrea sed success in rising from a chair.