We examined both muscle strength and power in relation to non-injurious and injurious falls in older women. Higher grip strength, but not stair climb power, was associated with lower odds of both fall outcomes. Findings highlight muscle strength as a potential target for fall prevention strategies in older women. Falls are the leading cause of injury and injury death in older women, with an increase in fall prevalence during midlife. While muscle strength and power may be modifiable risk factors for falls, associations of both muscle strength and power with injurious falls have not been investigated together in a study of community-dwelling middle-aged and older women. In the Study of Women’s Health Across the Nation (SWAN), muscle function and falls were measured in 2015–2017 and 2021–2023 (6.6 ± 0.3 years follow-up). Muscle function tests included grip strength (kg/weight(kg)) and stair climb power (W/weight(kg)). Self-reported falls in the past year were categorized as no falls, non-injurious falls, or injurious falls (fractured bone, hit/injured head, sprain/strain, bruises, bleeding, other). Generalized estimating equations were used to model associations between time-varying muscle function measures and fall outcomes adjusted for demographics, body size, lifestyle factors, and multimorbidities. Among 1710 women (age 65.0 ± 2.7 years), 28
AIM:Growing evidence suggests that age-related declines in balance and gait are major contributors to falls, loss of independence, and reduced quality of life in older adults, yet the underlying neural mechanisms remain incompletely understood. The aim of this scoping review was to provide an overview of electroencephalogram (EEG) power spectrum correlates of balance and gait control when standing or walking quietly, and while responding to sensory, mechanical, or cognitive disturbances, in older adults. This knowledge would be important for developing targeted interventions and rehabilitation strategies aimed at enhancing neural function, improving balance and gait, and ultimately reducing the risk of falls and disability among older adults. We further investigated within the identified studies the types of methods used for EEG signal acquisition, preprocessing, and motion artifact removal. METHODS:PubMed, Embase, and Web of Science were searched for articles published between 1999 and 2025 using the keywords EEG, brain activity, gait, balance, aging, older adults, and other related search terms. This review followed the Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI) framework and reported according to the PRISMA-ScR for a scoping review. RESULTS:A total of 14 articles were included in this review. This scoping review found that in older adults, increasing the difficulty of standing and walking tasks increased delta, theta, and gamma activity, and decreased alpha and beta activity, in the frontal and central regions of the brain. When compared to younger adults, older adults exhibited greater theta and gamma activity, yet lesser alpha and beta activity, during both standing and walking tasks over sensory and motor areas of the brain. CONCLUSION:Knowledge synthesized in this review provides insight into the neurobiological mechanisms underlying standing and walking in older adults. The findings of this scoping may lead to developing personalized interventions, such as using non-intensive brain stimulation, to target certain brain activity, which might eventually reduce the risk of falls and disability among older adults.
OBJECTIVES:To examine whether nursing home (NH) residents with Alzheimer's disease and related dementias (ADRD) are more likely than those without ADRD to be exposed to potential drug-drug interactions (DDIs) and to experience longer durations of exposure to DDIs. DESIGN:Retrospective observational study. SETTING AND PARTICIPANTS:Long-stay US NH residents. METHODS:We leveraged Medicare Fee-for-Service enrollment and claims data linked to Minimum Data Set 3.0 clinical assessments from 2018 to 2020 and identified NH residents aged ≥66 years with observable part D prescription drug data. We identified exposure to 98 potential DDIs during the duration of their NH stay. We described the number of DDIs with a clinically meaningful difference in prevalence and/or duration between groups, defined as a ≥1% difference in prevalence and ≥7 days' duration, respectively. We used a log-binomial model to estimate the association between ADRD and exposure to any DDI as an adjusted prevalence ratio with 95% CIs and predicted the marginal prevalence of exposure to any DDI for those with vs without ADRD, standardized to population covariate distributions. RESULT:We identified 485,251 eligible NH residents (average age, 84.6 [SD, 8.1] years; 67.1% female; 70.1% with ADRD; 56.6% with a potential DDI). A diagnosis of ADRD was associated with a higher prevalence of DDI exposure (prevalence ratio, 1.09 [95% CI, 1.08, 1.09]; marginal predicted prevalence for those with vs without ADRD: 58.0% vs 53.3%). Twelve DDIs had different prevalences between groups, and 34 DDIs had different differences in duration. For example, 29.6% of residents with vs 21.2% without ADRD were exposed to ≥3 central nervous system-active drugs. CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS:NH residents with ADRD had a higher prevalence and duration of potential DDIs. Future research should evaluate whether the interactions we identified have causal effects on adverse outcomes such as falls.
Visual motion perception requires balancing spatial integration, which supports discrimination of weak or noisy signals, with spatial suppression, which limits the influence of large, high-contrast motion patterns. This balance shifts with stimulus properties: increasing size improves performance at low contrast (spatial summation) but worsens it at high contrast (spatial suppression). We tested whether MT/V5 contributes to these processes by applying transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) while measuring motion-direction discrimination for small and large gratings at low and high contrast. Cathodal tDCS selectively improved discrimination of large high-contrast stimuli, indicating reduced spatial suppression and supporting a role for MT/V5 in limiting perception of strong motion signals. At low contrast, cathodal stimulation impaired discrimination regardless of size, consistent with a reduced amplification of weak inputs. These effects strengthened gradually after stimulation, and were most evident following cathodal stimulation relative to sham. Analysis comparing cathodal, sham and anodal stimulation did not support a categorical polarity-specific interpretation, but indicated a polarity-sensitive pattern driven by cathodal modulation. These findings provide causal evidence that modulating MT/V5 alters both suppressive surround mechanisms at high contrast and sensitivity to weak motion signals at low contrast, implicating MT/V5 in the balance between integrative and segregative processing during motion perception.
