Navigating Real-World Obstacles: Comparisons to the Traditional Dowel Rod

Historically, obstacle crossing has been studied in a laboratory setting using a dowel rod as a modality to understand how and why individuals trip and subsequently fall. The dowel features several characteristics that are optimal for research in a laboratory setting, however, it lacks applicability in real-life situations. The purpose of this study was to compare measures of obstacle crossing for the traditional laboratory obstacle (the dowel) to several real-world obstacles. Thirty healthy, young adults (23 [4] y, range: 19-35 y) completed 6 barefoot walking conditions over an 8-m instrumented walkway while motion was recorded in 3D. Participants performed unobstructed walking as familiarization trials and 5 obstructed walking conditions were presented in a randomized order: (1) dowel, (2) branch, (3) parking curb, (4) puddle, and (5) caution rope. Measures of vertical and horizontal obstacle clearance indicate that healthy young adults cross the dowel obstacle differently than they cross real-world obstacles, such as a curb, a puddle, and a caution rope but most similar to a branch. Since dowel rods have historically been used to assess obstacle crossing strategies, we encourage researchers and readers to exercise caution when extrapolating findings to real-world obstacles found in everyday life.