Sport Science

Dr. Katharina Gordt-Oesterwind - Sport Science M.Sc.
Network Aging Research

Bergheimer Straße 20
D-69115 Heidelberg

Phone: +49 (0)6221 54 8132
gordt(at)nar.uni-heidelberg.de

Fellow: Dr. Michael Schwenk

Balance abilities in older adults: development and evaluation of challenging/advanced everyday-related assessments

In the next years, the demographic change will result in a drastic change in the age distribution due to the decline in the birth rate and the increasing life expectancy of the entire population. With increasing age, various age-related declines occur. Both cognitive and physical performance, such as strength, endurance and balance, decrease with increasing age, which can have massive consequences such as limited mobility and independence in everyday life as well as an increased risk of falling. The balance ability plays a particularly important role for mobility and independence in older people. The decline in this ability starts at the age of 30. The greatest loss occurs between the ages of 60 and 70 often leading to falls. In recent years, there have been increasing calls to begin the early detection and treatment of balance deterioration in community-dwelling older adults with good physical performance in order to avoid serious consequences. In contrast to balance training, this approach is already widely used in strength and endurance training.

In order to be able to identify subtle balance declines in the special group of young seniors between 60 and 70 years of age challenging, sensitive and valid assessment instruments, which test more than simple static and dynamic balance abilities, are necessary. However, so far, only few validated measures are available for this target group. A new, promising assessment is the "Community Balance & Mobility Scale". The "Community Balance & Mobility Scale" consists of a total of 13 items including various motor skills such as multitasking, performing complex movements and sequencing movement components that are important for everyday life. So far, the "Community Balance & Mobility Scale" has been successfully used in older community-dwelling and in various patient populations. The results suggest that this scale may also be suitable for the younger group of 60-70 year old community-dwelling adults as a promising tool for the early detection of subtle balance impairment. So far, however, this scale has not been used in this target group.

Awards

• 2017 Presentation Award of the German Society of Physiotherapy Science at the 2. Research Symposium Physiotherapy (3. place)

Publications

• Gordt K., Nerz C., Mikolaizak A.S., Taraldsen K., Pijnappels M., Helbostad J.L., Vereijken B., Becker C., Schwenk M. Sensitivity to Change and Responsiveness of the Original and the Shortened Version of the Community Balance & Mobility Scale for Young Seniors. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apmr.2021.03.036
• Gordt, K., Mikolaizak, A. S., Taraldsen, K., Bergquist, R., Van Ancum, J. M., Nerz, C., Pijnappels, M., Maier, A. B., Helbostad, J. L., & Vereijken, B. (2020). Creating and validating a shortened version of the community balance and mobility scale for application in people who are 61 to 70 years of age. 100(1), 180-191, doi: 10.1093/ptj/pzz132 (accepted)
• Gordt, K., Paraschiv-Ionescu, A., Mikolaizak, A. S., Taraldsen, K., Mellone, S., Bergquist, R., ... & Helbostad, J. L. (2020). The Association of Basic and Challenging Motor Capacity with Mobility Performance and Falls in Young Seniors. Archives of Gerontology and Geriatrics, 104134. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.archger.2020.104134
• Gerhardy, T., Gordt, K., Jansen, C.-P., & Schwenk, M.  (2019). Towards Using the Instrumented Timed Up-and-Go Test for Screening of Sensory System Performance for Balance Control in Older Adults. 19(3), 622.
• Gordt, K., Gerhardy, T., Najafi, B., & Schwenk, M. (2018). Effects of wearable sensor-based balance and gait training on balance, gait, and functional performance in healthy and patient populations: a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials. 64(1), 74-89.
• Gordt, K., Mikolaizak, A. S., Nerz, C., Barz, C., Gerhardy, T., Weber, M., Becker, C., & Schwenk, M. (2019). German version of the community balance and mobility scale. 52(1), 28-36.
• Gordt, K., Müller, C., Gerhardy, T., & Schwenk, M. (2019). Einfluss von dual-tasking auf das Geradeaus-und Kurvengehen älterer Menschen. 52(7), 673-679.
• Madehkhaksar, F., Klenk, J., Sczuka, K., Gordt, K., Melzer, I., & Schwenk, M. (2018). The effects of unexpected mechanical perturbations during treadmill walking on spatiotemporal gait parameters, and the dynamic stability measures by which to quantify postural response. 13(4).
• Nerz, C., Schwickert, L., Schölch, S., Gordt, K., Nolte, P.-C., Kröger, I., Augat, P., & Becker, C. (2019). Inter-rater reliability, sensitivity to change and responsiveness of the orthopaedic Wolf-Motor-Function-Test as functional capacity measure before and after rehabilitation in patients with proximal humeral fractures. 20(1), 315.
• Nouredanesh, M., Gordt, K., Schwenk, M., Tung, J. (2019). Automated detection of multidirectional compensatory balance reactions: a step towards tracking naturally-occurring near-falls.
• Weber, M., Van Ancum, J., Bergquist, R., Taraldsen, K., Gordt, K., Mikolaizak, A. S., Nerz, C., Pijnappels, M., Jonkman, N. H., & Maier, A. B. (2018). Concurrent validity and reliability of the Community Balance and Mobility scale in young-older adults. 18(1), 156.
• Publications of Researchgate
• Publications on Pubmed

Vita