Article

Thirty-two healthy young adults (15 women) were tested for their ability to
maintain their comfortable step pattern following an unpredictable underfoot
perturbation in the presence and absence of a concurrent vocal choice reaction
time task. Custom instrumented shoes were used to randomly deliver an unexpected
medial or lateral forefoot perturbation that inverted the mid-foot an average of
10 degrees or everted the midfoot an average of 9 degrees during one stance phase
of a gait trial. Medial and lateral perturbations were randomized between left
and right feet in 12 of 30 gait trials. The results of the repeated measures
analyses of variance show that, compared to the step parameters of unperturbed
gait, the administration of the unexpected underfoot perturbation did not
significantly lead to alterations in the step length or width of the first
recovery step. In addition, the simultaneous administration of a vocal choice
reaction time task with the underfoot perturbation did not significantly affect
the kinematics of the first recovery step. We conclude that in young healthy
adults an unexpected 9-10 degrees underfoot perturbation, with or without a vocal
reaction time task, will not affect their recovery step kinematics when walking
at a comfortable gait speed.
CI - Copyright (c) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Langue : ANGLAIS