As we get older, we ALL have less efficient feedback from peripheral receptors telling us our position in space (via the cerebellum). To combat that loss, humans do several things but the most obvious are changes in their gait and stance.
When we walk as younger people, we all have a characteristic ANGLE & BASE OF GAIT.
The distance between our feet and lower legs is just sufficient to allow one extremity to pass the other through ambulation, without hitting it's contralateral leg (unless, in the obese, the thighs are so big, the individual CIRCUMDUCTS around the blockage from the thigh). This distance, individual to each person, is called the
BASE of gait. As we age this distance increases.
Secondly, we do not ambulate in a direct line forward. The lower limbs, through growth from 6 months to about 7, rotate their entire length in a growth spurt in both the femur and tibia. Sometimes that growth does not follow normal patterns and intervention is required.
https://www.childrenshospital.org/co...al-anteversion
This is the
ANGLE of gait and it remains stable until well in our 70's When cerebellar function begins to decrease feedback or proprioception, and individual will gain stability by externally rotating their legs.
The combination of increased angle and base woks in a compensatory way of loss of proprioception to a point. As muscle tone decreases the stride length has to be shortened as well for long steps require intact feedback of position of person in space..
Another aspect gerontologists look for is when individuals have both these problems, they usually cannot do more that one task (walk) at a time: if they are talking, they may stop to finish a conversation, or it they are doing something with their hands, they will stop again to do only one function at a time. These changes have a lot to do with fear of falling as well.
These functional degenerative changes happen to us ALL to varying degrees when we are in our 70's upward and account for many falls in the geriatric
Watch sometime at the angle of base of an older individual compared to yours.
