Article

Despite the ubiquitous nature of gait impairment in multiple sclerosis (MS),
there is limited information concerning the control of gait termination in
individuals with MS. The purpose of this investigation was to examine planned
gait termination in individuals with MS and healthy controls with and without
cognitive distractors. Individuals with MS and age matched controls completed a
series of gait termination tasks over a pressure sensitive walkway under
non-distracting and cognitively distracting conditions. As expected the MS group
had a lower velocity (89.9+/-33.3 cm/s) than controls (142.8+/-22.4 cm/s) and
there was a significant reduction in velocity in both groups under the cognitive
distracting conditions (MS: 73.9+/-30.7 cm/s; control: 120.0+/-25.9 cm/s).
Although individuals with MS walked slower, there was no difference between
groups in the rate a participant failed to stop at the target (i.e. failure
rate). Overall failure rate had a 10-fold increase in the cognitively distracting
condition across groups. Individuals with MS were more unstable during
termination. Future research examining the neuromuscular mechanisms contributing
to gait termination is warranted.
CI - Copyright (c) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Langue : ANGLAIS