Motor Dual-Tasks for Gait Analysis and Evaluation in Post-Stroke Patients

Summary

This paper presents a protocol specifically for dual motor task gait analysis in stroke patients with motor control deficits.

Abstract

Eighteen stroke patients were recruited for this study involving the evaluation of cognition and walking ability and multitask gait analysis. Multitask gait analysis consisted of a single walking task (Task 0), a simple motor dual-task (water-holding, Task 1), and a complex motor dual-task (crossing obstacles, Task 2). The task of crossing obstacles was considered to be equivalent to the combination of a simple walking task and a complex motor task as it involved more nervous system, skeletal movement, and cognitive resources. To eliminate heterogeneity in the results of the gait analysis of the stroke patients, the dual-task gait cost values were calculated for various kinematic parameters. The major differences were observed in the proximal joint angles, especially in the angles of the trunk, pelvis, and hip joints, which were significantly larger in the dual motor tasks than in the single walking task. This research protocol aims to provide a basis for the clinical diagnosis of gait function and an in-depth study of motor control in stroke patients with motor control deficits through the analyses of dual-motor walking tasks.

Introduction

The restoration of independent walking function is one of the requisites for the participation of post-stroke patients in community life¹. The recovery of walking ability requires not only the interaction of the perception and cognitive systems, but also motor control^2,3,4. Furthermore, in real community life, people require higher abilities such as performing two or more tasks at the same time (e.g., walking while holding objects or crossing obstacles). Therefore, studies have begun to focus on the interference of dual-tasks in gait performan....

Protocol

NOTE: The clinical study was approved by the Medical Ethics Association of the Fifth Affiliated Hospital of Guangzhou Medical University (NO. KY01-2019-02-27) and has been registered at the China Clinical Trial Registration Center (No. ChiCTR1800017487 and entitled, "The multiple modal tasks on gait control and motor cognition after stroke").

1. Recruitment

1. Recruit stroke patients with the following inclusion criteria: patients meeting the diagnostic criteria for cerebrovascular disease of the Neurological Branch of the Chinese Medical Association (2005); cerebral infarction confirmed by computed tomography or magnetic r....

Results

Eighteen patients with hemiplegia after stroke were recruited in this study. The average age of the participants was 51.61 ± 12.97 years; all were males. The proportion of left and right hemiplegia was 10/8; the average Brunnstrom stage was 4.50 ± 0.76. The average of MMSE and MoCA were 26.56 ± 1.67 and 20.06 ± 2.27, respectively. Other demographic characteristics (including stroke type and time of onset) are shown in Table 1. For the original data of gait dual-tasks (Task 1 and Task 2), there was no sta.......

Discussion

This study describes a protocol for the clinical assessment of dual motor task gait analysis in stroke patients with motor control deficits. The design of this protocol was based on two main points. First, most previous studies used a single walking task to assess the gait function of stroke patients, and the related discussions on motor control were inadequate, especially because the principles of complex motor movements were rarely involved^22,23. Therefore, in .......

Materials

List of materials used in this article

Name	Company	Catalog Number	Comments
BTS Smart DX system	Bioengineering Technology System, Milan, Italy	1	Temporospatial data collection
BTS SMART-Clinic software	Bioengineering Technology System, Milan, Italy	2	Data processing
SPSS software (version 25.0)	IBM Crop., Armonk, NY, USA		Statistical analysis