Controlling the ground reaction force angle characterises better recovery following a single forward falling slip in young and older adults H. Debelle, C. Maganaris, T. O’Brien Liverpool John Moores University, Research Institute for Sport and Exercise Sciences, Liverpool, United Kingdom 1. Introduction Evidence now shows that forward falling slips (FFS) can be important causes of falls [1,2]. Therefore, studies to understand the characteristics and requirements of successful recovery are needed to devise compre- hensive fall prevention interventions, especially for older adults (OA). 2. Research question How do young adults (YA) and OA recover their balance following a FFS? What strategies characterise the most successful recoveries? 3. Methods Thirteen YA (24.8 ± 3.3y, 175.4 ± 5.8 cm, 71.0 ± 7.0 kg) and thirteen OA (60.8 ± 5.5y, 162.4 ± 8.0 cm, 66.4 ± 12.3 kg) walked on a split-belt instrumented treadmill at 1.2 m⋅s 1 . We simulated a FFS by increasing the posterior velocity of the slipped foot in the second half of stance [3]. We measured dynamic balance (margin of stability at heel strike: MoS HS ), hip, knee and ankle moments, sagittal ground reaction force angle (GRF θ , vertical = 0 ◦ ) during the slip (Slip) and ffteen re- covery steps (Rec1–Rec15). Statistical parametric mapping tested each outcome measure for differences between Age, Step and Age*Step, with relevant post-hoc tests. When a signifcant effect of step was detected, binomial correlations tested whether the specifc adaptation was associated with better re- covery, defned by the absolute change in MoS HS from Normal (average of 5 gait cycles collected before Slip) to the following step. Fig. 1. XXX. Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Gait & Posture journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/gaitpost https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gaitpost.2020.07.063 0966-6362/© 2020 Published by Elsevier Ltd. Gait & Posture 81 (2020) 77–78