Can foot placement during gait be trained? Adaptations in stability control when ankle moments are constrained

Hoogstad, L A; Leeuwen, A.M. van; Dieën, Jaap H. van; Bruijn, Sjoerd M.

doi:10.1016/j.jbiomech.2022.110990

Cited by 18 publications

(45 citation statements)

References 29 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Despite walking to the beat of a metronome in all conditions, step time showed a slight decrease when walking with EVS, while variability of step time and step width increased with EVS for all conditions. Previous studies have also found small and significant changes in stride frequency when participants walked in challenging conditions in spite of the use of a metronome (van Leeuwen et al 2020; Hoogstad et al 2022). Walking with EVS led to reduced gait stability during walking at all step widths (as evidenced by a higher LDE), as found previously (Sloot et al 2011; van Schooten et al 2011; Magnani et al 2021).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 90%

Effects of vestibular stimulation on gait stability when walking at different step widths

Magnani¹,

Dieën

Bruijn

2021

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Vestibular information modulates muscle activity during gait, presumably to contribute stability, because noisy electrical vestibular stimulation perturbs gait stability. An important mechanism to stabilize gait in the mediolateral direction is to coordinate foot placement based on a sensory estimate of the trunk center of mass state, to which vestibular information appears to contribute. We, therefore expected that noisy vestibular stimulation would decrease the correlation between foot placement and trunk center of mass state. Moreover, as vestibular modulation of muscle activity during gait depends on step width, we expected stronger effects for narrow-base than normal walking, and smaller effects for wide-base walking. In eleven healthy subjects we measured the kinematics of the trunk (as a proxy of the center of mass), and feet, while they walked on a treadmill in six conditions, including three different step widths: control (preferred step width), narrow-base (steps smaller than hip width), and wide-base (with steps greater than hip width). The three conditions were conducted with and without a bipolar electrical stimulus, applied behind the ears (5 mA). Walking with EVS reduced gait stability but increased the foot placement to center of mass correlation in different step width conditions. The narrow-base walking was the most stable condition and showed a stronger correlation between foot placement and center of mass state. We argue that EVS destabilized gait, but that this was partially compensated for by tightened control over foot placement, which would require successful use of other than vestibular sensory inputs, to estimate center of mass movement.

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 90%

Effects of vestibular stimulation on gait stability when walking at different step widths

Magnani¹,

Dieën

Bruijn

2021

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Toeing out may have been another strategy that subjects may have used. Indeed, walking on LesSchuh resulted in significantly more toeing-out (on average 1.9°) (see Supplementary figure 2, supplementary table 1) (Hoogstad et al, 2022; Rebula et al, 2017). Also, walking on the splitbelt resulted in a significant increase in toeing-out (on average 2.9°).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Previous work has suggested that LesSchuh may be used as a perturbation of foot placement control, and that the aftereffects after walking with such a perturbation can be used as training (Heitkamp et al, 2019; Hoogstad et al, 2022; Reimold et al, 2020). However, the current results show that walking with LesSchuh can only be regarded as a perturbation to foot placement control if subjects walk on a split belt treadmill.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Differential effects of ankle constraints on foot placement control between normal and split belt treadmills

Hos

Iersel

Leeuwen

et al. 2022

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Mediolateral ankle moment control contributes to gait stability. Therefore, constraining ankle moment control might affect other stability mechanisms, including foot placement control. Ankle moments can be constrained by walking with a shoe with a ridge underneath the sole, narrowing the mediolateral support surface. Based on the literature, it seems that constraining ankle moment control in this fashion results in an increased step width and a decrease in the degree of foot placement control, as defined by the percentage of variance in foot placement that can be explained by CoM state. However, since that study was performed on a splitbelt treadmill and the narrow ridge could fit inside the gap between the belts, it is not evident whether these effects can be attributed to the constrained ankle moment control or to avoidance of this gap. Therefore, we investigated if the effects of ankle moment constraints are dependent on whether participants walk on a normal treadmill or a splitbelt treadmill. We included fourteen healthy young adults. Walking with constrained ankle moment control resulted in a wider step width on both treadmills. Yet, the increase in step width was larger on the splitbelt treadmill compared to on the normal treadmill. Moreover, we only found a decreased degree of foot placement control on the splitbelt, whilst the degree of foot placement control increased on the normal treadmill. We conclude that the effects of ankle moment constraints reported in our previous study were confounded by the use of a splitbelt. For future research, we recommend using a normal treadmill whenever possible, because the gap in a splitbelt treadmill might affect gait parameters.

show abstract

“…The second condition consisted of 15 min walking on the Les-Schuh (Fig. 1) as walking on LesSchuh for 10 min was not always enough to reach a steady state (Hoogstad et al, 2022;van Leeuwen et al, 2020).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The effect of constraining mediolateral ankle moments and foot placement on the use of the counter-rotation mechanism during walking

Bogaart

Bruijn²,

Spildooren³

et al. 2022

Gait & Posture

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Can foot placement during gait be trained? Adaptations in stability control when ankle moments are constrained

Cited by 18 publications

References 29 publications

Effects of vestibular stimulation on gait stability when walking at different step widths

Effects of vestibular stimulation on gait stability when walking at different step widths

Differential effects of ankle constraints on foot placement control between normal and split belt treadmills

The effect of constraining mediolateral ankle moments and foot placement on the use of the counter-rotation mechanism during walking

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About