Article

The objective of the study was to examine whether and how an additional load
affects the Anticipatory Postural Adjustments (APA) in gait initiation in
able-bodied individuals. Nineteen healthy participants initiated gait at a
self-selected speed in two conditions: unloaded and with an overload of 15% body
weight. The APA duration, the forward impulse of the APA and the duration of gait
initiation increased significantly with the overload, while the other variables
did not change. These results indicate that, during gait initiation with
overload, able-bodied subjects modulate the APA duration to produce a higher
forward impulse in order to achieve the steady-state gait at the end of the first
step. These findings could have implications in clinical practice where
overloading could be used to improve the gait initiation in pathologic patients.
Further investigations are needed to confirm this suggestion.
CI - Copyright (c) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Langue : ANGLAIS