OBSTACLE COURSE: ASSESSMENT OF FUNCTIONAL MOBILITY AND BALANCE IN THE ELDERLY

Abstract

An Obstacle Course (OC) is a series of physical obstacles that individuals or teams must overcome in a certain time period. OC applications are differentiated by changing walking, running, climbing, splashing, crawling, balance or mental parameters for its purpose. In order to assess and treat balance and mobility problems in the elderly population, the obstacles on the course are designed to simulate the activities they encounter in daily life. The OC’s used in this group generally consist of different surfacese, obstacles of various heights, obstacles such as stairs and ramps. In the literature, there are EP examples consisting of various parts such as walking, jumping over obstacles, climbing stairs, walking on different surfaces. However, there is no standardization on the content (duration, number of obstacles, length, material used) of OC’s used for both evaluation and treatment purposes. Although EPs are structured in different features, their greatest advantage is their ability to simulate real-life functional tasks and to provide functionally oriented information about dynamic balance and mobility in the person-environment relationship during the performance of these tasks. Exercise programs aimed at preventing falls in the elderly are becoming more functional day by day, yet balance and fall assessments in the elderly with a history of falls are usually performed with laboratory or clinical tests. These tests, which are used in balance assessment, are mostly far from reflecting the activities of the individual in daily life and the problems encountered in daily life. OC’s provide important advantages in terms of measuring balance and other parameters against the obstacles encountered in daily life and offering treatment opportunities.