AUTHOR=Ezzina Samar , Pla Simon , Delignières Didier 

TITLE=Restoring the complexity of walking in the elderly and its impact on clinical measures around the risk of falls

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Network Physiology

VOLUME=Volume 5 - 2025

YEAR=2025

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/network-physiology/articles/10.3389/fnetp.2025.1532700

DOI=10.3389/fnetp.2025.1532700

ISSN=2674-0109

ABSTRACT=Introduction: The hypothesis of the loss of complexity with aging and disease has received strong attention. Especially, the decrease of complexity of stride interval series in older people, during walking, was shown to correlate with falling propensity. However, recent experiments showed that a restoration of walking complexity in older people could occur through the prolonged experience of synchronized walking with a younger companion. This result was interpreted as the consequence of a complexity matching effect.Experiment: The aim of the present study was to analyze the link between the restoration of walking complexity in older people and clinical measures usually used in the context of rehabilitation or follow-up of older people.Results: We evidenced a link between restoring complexity, improving overall health and reducing fear of falling. In addition, we showed that 3 weeks of complexity matching training can have a positive effect on complexity up to 2 months post-protocol. Finally, we showed that the restoration of walking complexity obtained in the previous works is not guide-dependent.