Labs invite volunteers to slip for science

Training to recover from slips
Mark Grabiner of the University of Illinois in Chicago and a colleague recently sent 52 adults for a stroll over artificial ice, to see what reactions make a difference between falling and just wobbling.

Two things stood out. People who were able to slow down the slipping foot were more likely to recover, Grabiner said. More surprising was a finding about the other foot. The most crucial thing about its placement is how far to the left or right from the center it is.

Study analysis implies that “if I can improve the location of that foot in the sideways direction by only four centimeters (about 1.5 inches), I increase the likelihood of this person recovering by 50 percent,” Grabiner said.

But can people be trained to react differently to an event that happens so quickly and unexpectedly? Grabiner said he’s had success in training older women to keep from falling after tripping. So he believes the new data will help his efforts to train older men to recover from slips.

In fact, studies do suggest people who’ve practiced recovery moves can improve their reactions to slipping, Cham said. “You retain a library of what to do in these types of challenging situations,” she said. “Your reactions become more appropriate and perhaps faster.”

The big question, she said, is how long that effect persists after the training is over.

Research continues
Some research is focusing on subtleties of walking that people don’t even notice. Angela DiDomenico of the Liberty Mutual Research Institute for Safety in Hopkinton, Mass., is studying “microslips.” These are routine, tiny skids forward of the heel.

Researchers want to find out if large unnoticed microslips indicate a person at risk of falling, or a floor that’s especially dangerous, she said.

Other studies at that lab and other researchers also focus on environmental factors like floors and the things that make them slippery. Such research has helped Liberty Mutual Insurance Co. advise commercial policyholders on workplace safety, said Karl Jacobson, senior vice president for loss prevention.

The company prescribes things like how to effectively remove animal fats from restaurant kitchen floors.

Grove, the volunteer who slipped in the Pittsburgh lab, was closely monitored during his experiment. He wore sensors on his legs to record muscle activity. And tiny balls stuck to various parts of his body served as landmarks so a computer could analyze his movements with great precision, and in three dimensions.

Grove had signed a consent form that told him the floor would be slippery at some point, and of course he wore the harness to prevent falling. But as he strode across the floor again and again without incident, his guard was lowered.

At one point, when his back was turned, lab manager April Chambers smeared a mix of water and glycerol on the vinyl tile floor. On his next stroll, Grove’s heel found the slick.

“It was a little shocking,” he said later.

Lab workers will soon begin a study of how people adjust their gait if they expect trouble. They will still surreptitiously smear that slick on the floor when the time is right.

But now they’ll be tripping people too.

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