Many factors can affect stair fall risk including frailty, risky behaviour (such as carrying objects on stairs) and poor vision, but several previous reports demonstrate the importance of the built environment and in particular stair dimensions in dynamic balance control and the circumstance of stair falls. Although stair fall risk is notably heightened for an older adult largely due to age related factors such as reduced vision or musculoskeletal function, stairs falls occur across the lifespan and are a broad societal issue. Stair fall accidents often result in serious injury and in severe cases can be fatal. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.Ĭompeting interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.ĭata Availability: All relevant data are within the manuscript and its Supporting Information files.įunding: TKS was awarded a PhD scholarship, funded by Liverpool John Moores University (UK). Received: ApAccepted: AugPublished: September 14, 2021Ĭopyright: © 2021 Skervin et al. PLoS ONE 16(9):Įditor: Kei Masani, Toronto Rehabilitation Institute - UHN, CANADA
(2021) Using a stair horizontal-vertical illusion to increase foot clearance over an inconsistently taller stair-riser.
Citation: Skervin TK, Thomas NM, Schofield AJ, Hollands MA, Maganaris CN, O’Brien TD, et al.