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Safety on stairs: Influence of a tread edge highlighter and its position
Foster, Richard J. Hotchkiss, John
Foster, Richard J.
Hotchkiss, John
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Publication Date
2014-07
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© 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
Peer-Reviewed
Yes
Open Access status
openAccess
Accepted for publication
2014-04-14
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Additional title
Abstract
Background: Falls sustained when descending stairs are the leading cause of accidental death in older adults.
Highly visible edge highlighters/friction strips (often set back from the tread edge) are sometimes used to improve
stair safety, but there is no evidence for the usefulness of either.
Objective: To determine whether an edge highlighter and its location relative to the tread edge affect foot
placement/clearance and accidental foot contacts when descending stairs.
Method: Sixteen older adults (mean ± 1 SD age; 71 ± 7 years) with normal vision (experiment 1) and eight
young adults (mean ± 1 SD age; 24 ± 4 years) with visual impairment due to simulated age-related cataract
(experiment 2) completed step descent trials during which a high contrast edge highlighter was either not
present, placed flush with the tread edge, or set back from the edge by 10 mm or 30 mm. Foot placement/
clearance and the number of accidental foot contacts were compared across conditions.
Results: In experiment 1, a highlighter set back by 30 mm led to a reduction in final foot placement (p b 0.001)
and foot clearance (p b 0.001) compared to a highlighter placed flush with the tread edge, and the percentage
of foot clearances that were less than 5 mm increased from 2% (abutting) to 17% (away30). In experiment 2, a
highlighter placed flushwith the tread edge led to a decrease in within-subject variability in final foot placement
(p = 0.004) and horizontal foot clearance (p = 0.022), a decrease in descent duration (p = 0.009), and a decrease
in the number of low clearances (b5 mm, from 8% to 0%) and the number of accidental foot contacts
(15% to 3%) when compared to a tread edge with no highlighter present.
Conclusions: Changes to foot clearance parameters as a result of highlighter presence and position suggest that
stairswith high-contrast edge highlighters positioned flushwith the tread edgewill improve safety on stairs, particularly
for those with age-related visual impairment.
Version
Published version
Citation
Foster RA, Hotchkiss J, Buckley JG, Elliott DB (2014) Safety on stairs: Influence of a tread edge highlighter and its position. Experimental Gerontology 55: 152–158
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Article