The twofold goal of this study is to understand the link between muscle power, muscle strength, and muscle control degradation with the risk of falling, and to develop a framework for the comprehensive and quantitative assessment of muscle power (and strength) in an elderly population of patients with knee osteoarthritis, who are at higher risk of falling. The main question it aims to answer is:
● Are muscle power and motor control degradation better predictors of falls than muscle strength in the aging population?
Participants will undergo:
* Muscle force assessment on a dynamometer * Muscle power assessment on a dynamometer and on isntrumented stairs * Home-based mobility monitoring * Full lower limb MRI acquisition * Gait assessment
Age between 65 and 80 years
Kellgren score II e III
No history of falls in the last 12 months
Any musculoskeletal, neurological, rheumatic or tumoral diseases
Dementia
Diabetes
Inguinal or abdominal hernia
Single group
Muscle power assessment
Other interventionIsokinetic dynamometry test Stair ascent/descent on instrumented stairs
Muscle force assessment
Other interventionIsometric dynamometry (Maximal Voluntary Isometric Contraction)
Home-based mobility monitoring
Other interventionMobility monitoring with wearable sensors
Magnetic Resonance Imaging
Diagnostic testFull lower limb MRI
Gait assessment
Other interventionMotion capture, surface EMG and gorund reaction force data
Maximal muscle force
Maximal Isometric muscle force from dynamometry test
Muscle power
Assessed on the dynamometer and during dynamic tasks
Muscle activations
From surface EMG data collected on the dynamometer and during dynamic tasks (gait assessment and stair ascent/descent)
Digital Mobility Outcomes
Qualitative and quantiative measures of real-world mobility (e.g., gait speed, stride length)
Musculoskeletal model predictions
Estimates of muscle force and knee joint contact forces
Muscle volumes
Estimation of muscle volumes (cm3)
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