http://www.jneuroengrehab.com/content/11/1/127/abstract
anez Pav¿i¿, Zlatko Matja¿i¿ and Andrej Olen¿ek
Journal of NeuroEngineering and Rehabilitation 2014, 11:127
doi:10.1186/1743-0003-11-127
Published: 23 August 2014
Published: 23 August 2014
Abstract (provisional)
Background
After neurological injury, gait rehabilitation typically focuses on task oriented
training with many repetitions of a particular movement. Modern rehabilitation devices,
including treadmills, augment gait rehabilitation. However, they typically provide
gait training only in the forward direction of walking, hence the mechanisms associated
with changing direction during turning are not practiced. A regular treadmill extended
with the addition of rotation around the vertical axis is a simple device that may
enable the practice of turning during walking. The objective of this study was to
investigate to what extent pelvis and torso rotations in the transversal plane, as
well as stride lengths while walking on the proposed rotating treadmill, resemble
those in over ground turning.
Methods
Ten neurologically and orthopedically intact subjects participated in the study. We
recorded pelvis and torso rotations in the transversal plane and the stride lengths
during over ground turning and while walking on a rotating treadmill in four experimental
conditions of turning. The similarity between pelvis and torso rotations in over ground
turning and pair-matching walking on the rotating treadmill was assessed using intra-class
correlation coefficient (ICC - two-way mixed single measure model). Finally, left
and right stride lengths in over ground turning as well as while walking on the rotating
treadmill were compared using a paired t-test for each experimental condition.
Results
An agreement analysis showed average ICC ranging between 0.9405 and 0.9806 for pelvis
and torso rotation trajectories respectively, across all experimental conditions and
directions of turning. The results of the paired t-tests comparing left and right
stride lengths showed that the stride of the outer leg was longer than the stride
of the inner leg during over ground turning as well as when walking on the rotating
treadmill. In all experimental conditions these differences were statistically significant.
Conclusions
In this study we found that pelvis rotation and torso rotation are similar when turning
over ground as compared to walking on a rotating treadmill. Additionally, in both
modes of turning, we found that the stride length of the outer leg is significantly
longer than the stride length of the inner leg.
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