Proprioception and Stability: Foot Position Awareness as a Function of Age and Footware

Abstract

We examined the hypothesis that awareness of foot position in terms of the slope of the weight-bearing surface declines with age. We further postulated that the decline would be due to a change in plantar tactile sensibility, and that footwear would further impair position judgments. We compared 15 men aged over 65 years (mean age 73) with 36 men aged under 40 (mean age 30) in terms of estimates of amplitude and direction of surface slopes. We employed a ratio scale of 0-10 representing actual slopes of 0 degrees-25 degrees in increments of 2.5 degrees. In order to examine whether subjects overestimated high angles they were told that the scale ranged from 0 to 15. We found significant differences between the two groups in terms of estimates and the effect of footwear. Psychophysical functions for estimate of slope were 0.95 for the young when barefoot and 0.71 when shod compared with 0.80 and 0.81 respectively for the older men. We conclude that sensitivity to foot position declines with age, mainly owing to loss of plantar tactile sensitivity. Footwear impairs foot position awareness in both young and old. Loss of foot position awareness may contribute to the frequency of falls in later life.

Presbypropria: the effects of physiological ageing on proprioceptive control

“…Kokmen et al 1978;Pai et al 1997;Thelen et al 1998) and position-estimation protocols (e.g. Barrack et al 1983;Barrett et al 1991;Gilsing et al 1995;Jordan 1978;Robbins et al 1995), which can respectively be used to measure limb movement and limb position senses, have shown to be correlated (Skinner et al 1984). In the present study, the performance of the proprioceptive system was tested in a joint position matching task.…”

The Relation of Hallux Valgus Severity With Foot Function and Balance in Older Men

“…Many falls by the elderly in their homes could be prevented with appropriate footwear. Low-heeled shoes and non-slip soles can increase the safety of the elderly inside their homes (37,38).…”

Aging effects on joint proprioception: the role of physical activity in proprioception preservation

“…Indeed, several studies showed a relationship between aging and decline in several aspects of proprioceptive sensitivity, namely a decrease in joint position sense and an increase in movement detection threshold. The lower limb, knee joint position sense [6,27,30,37,49,51], and ankle joint position sense [41,55,76,82] are negatively affected by aging. Similarly, in the upper limb, a decline in elbow [56] and finger [19] joint position sense was observed.…”

“…For ankle position sense Robbins et al [55] described an age-related decrease of about 3°(angular error of estimation increased from 3.418°in the young adults to 6.548°in the elderly). Similarly, Sung You [82] found differences of 47.5% in the joint ankle reposition between young (median age: 22.2 years) and aged (median age: 73.1 years) subjects.…”