Weight-bearing symmetry changes after asymmetric surface stiffness walking

2026/01/30 by Mark C. Price, Elena G. Schell, Jonaz Moreno Jaramillo +4 · 1 voice
Engineering · Health Professions · Neuroscience · #Balance, Gait, and Falls Prevention #Motor Control and Adaptation #Muscle activation and electromyography studies

paper · doi:10.1152/jn.00240.2025

openalex publication_date 2026/01/30 · openalex created_date 2026/02/01 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/31

Abstract

Weight-bearing asymmetry in individuals with hemiparetic stroke is resistant to treatments that produce improvements in other gait function measures (e.g., spatiotemporal symmetry). We investigated a novel perturbed ground stiffness intervention applied by an adjustable surface stiffness treadmill and found significant aftereffects in vertical and braking ground reaction force peaks in healthy young adults, as well as increases in perturbed-side plantar flexor activity during push-off, indicating a strong potential for correcting persistent deficiencies in poststroke gait.

Discussions

• Results from our first adjustable stiffness treadmill gait adaptation study have been published in the Journal of Neurophysiology! We found some interesting force and muscle activity aftereffects that [bsky, 2 points, 1 comments]

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