Axial Segmental Coordination During Turning: Effects of Stroke and Attentional Loadings

No clue what this is trying to say or how it might be used in your rehab.
http://journals.humankinetics.com/doi/abs/10.1123/mc.2015-0040

Haidzir Manaf¹* Maria Justine¹* Hui-Ting Goh²* Affiliations¹Universiti Teknologi MARA ²University of Malaya

*Manaf and Justine are with the Dept. of Physiotherapy, Faculty of Health Sciences, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Puncak Alam Campus, Selangor, Malaysia. Goh is with the Dept. of Rehabilitation Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Address author correspondence to Hui-Ting Goh at huitinggoh76@gmail.com.

Volume: 21 Issue: 1 Pages: 42-57
doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1123/mc.2015-0040

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1123/mc.2015-0040

• ABSTRACT
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Attentional loadings deteriorate straight walking performance for individuals poststroke, but its effects on turning while walking remain to be determined. Here we compared turning kinematics under three attentional loading conditions (single, dual-motor, and dual-cognitive task) between stroke survivors and healthy controls. Nine chronic stroke survivors and 10 healthy controls performed the Timed Upand- Go test while their full-body kinematics were recorded. Onset times of yaw rotation of the head, thorax and pelvis segments and head anticipation distance were used to quantify turning coordination. Results showed that stroke survivors reoriented their body segments much earlier than the controls, but they preserved the similar segmental reorientation sequence under the single-task condition. For the healthy controls, attentional loading led to an earlier axial segment reorientation, but the reorientation sequence was preserved. In contrast, the dual-cognitive task condition led to a disrupted reorientation sequence in stroke. The results indicate that turning coordination was altered in individuals poststroke, especially under the dual-task interference.