Sitting-walking Derived from Tai Chi Gait: A Fundamental Improvement to Fall Prevention in Older Adults (Part 3)—Fall Prevention Effect of Sitting-walking

This paper discusses the effects of sitting-walking (SW) derived from Tai Chi gait on fall prevention in older adults. Falls and instability of balance during normal walking (NW) are common problems among older adults. As independent risk factors for falls, muscle weakness, poor gait and balance (physiological factors), and fear of falls (psychological factors) are considered major obstacles to NW in older adults. The common approaches to fall prevention have focused on interventions aimed at improving the underlying problem, resulting in only a modest improvement in walking. Based on the physiological conditions of older adults, this paper focuses on reducing the risk of falls by solving the existing problems in the walk model itself. The authors believe that the problems existing in the NW (discussed in the second part) that cause unstable walking are the root cause of the falls of older adults with low physiological function and physical ability, and present a new perspective to minimize falls by changing the walking pattern itself. This paper aims to address the main problems in the NW phase, including the gait initiation and termination, and the active role of the SW mode (considered in the first part) to avoid the NW problems in older adults, thus reducing the difficulty of walking and improving walking stability.