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Varied movement errors drive learning of dynamic balance control during walking in people with incomplete spinal cord injury: a pilot study

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Abstract

The purpose of this study was to determine whether the application of a varied pelvis perturbation force would improve dynamic balance control and gait stability of people with incomplete spinal cord injury (iSCI). Fourteen participants with iSCI completed the test in two conditions, i.e., walking paired with pelvis perturbation force and treadmill walking only, with 1-week interval in between. The order of the testing condition was randomized across participants. For the pelvis pertubation condition, subjects walked on a treadmill with no force for 1 min, with a varied pelvis perturbation force that was bilaterally applied in the medial–lateral direction for 10 min, without force for 1 min, and then with the perturbation for another 10 min after a sitting break. For the treadmill only condition, a protocol that was similar to the perturbation condition was used but no force was applied. Margin of stability (MoS), weight shifting, and other spatiotemporal gait parameters were calculated. Compared to treadmill training only, participants showed significant smaller MoS and double-leg support time after treadmill walking with pelvis perturbation. In addition, participants showed significantly greater improvements in overground walking speed after treadmill walking with pelvis perturbation than treadmill only (p = 0.021). Results from this study suggest that applying a varied pelvis perturbation force during treadmill walking could improve dynamic balance control in people with iSCI, which could be transferred to overground walking. These findings may be used to develop a new intervention to improve balance and walking function in people with iSCI.

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Acknowledgements

The authors disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. This study is supported by National Institutes of Health (NIH) (Grant No. NIH/NICHD, R01HD083314). We thank Ms. Jill Landry for editing the manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Legs and Walking Lab, Shirley Ryan AbilityLab, 355 East Erie Street, 23rd Floor, Chicago, IL, 60611, USA

    Jui-Te Lin, Chao-Jung Hsu, Weena Dee, David Chen, W. Zev Rymer & Ming Wu

  2. Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Northwestern University, Chicago, IL, USA

    W. Zev Rymer & Ming Wu

  3. Department of Bioengineering, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA

    Ming Wu

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  1. Jui-Te Lin
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Correspondence to Ming Wu.

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Communicated by Francesco Lacquaniti.

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Lin, JT., Hsu, CJ., Dee, W. et al. Varied movement errors drive learning of dynamic balance control during walking in people with incomplete spinal cord injury: a pilot study. Exp Brain Res 238, 981–993 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00221-020-05776-0

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