Ranjan Shashi, Darji Priya, Diwan Shraddha J, Lahiri Uttama
Department of Electrical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology, Gandhinagar, India.
Department of Physiotherapy, S.B.B College of Physiotherapy, Ahmedabad, India.
Med Biol Eng Comput. 2025 Apr;63(4):1227-1248. doi: 10.1007/s11517-024-03249-y. Epub 2024 Dec 19.
Hemiplegic individuals often demonstrate gait abnormality causing asymmetry in lower-limb muscle activation-related (implicit) and gait-related (explicit) measures (offering complementary information on one's gait) while walking. Added to hemiplegia, such asymmetry can be aggravated while walking under varying task conditions, namely, walking without speaking (single task), walking while counting backwards (dual task), and walking while holding an object and counting backwards (multiple task). This emphasizes the need to quantify the extent of aggravated implication of multiple-task and dual-task on gait asymmetry compared to single task. Here, we used Integrated Wearable System and carried out a study with a group of age-matched hemiplegic (Grp_S) and healthy (Grp_H) individuals to understand the potential of our system in quantifying asymmetry in explicit and implicit measures of gait, implication of hemiplegic condition and varying task conditions on these asymmetry measures along with their clinical relevance. Results showed the potential of our system in quantifying asymmetry in both explicit and implicit measures of gait, and these measures were statistically higher (p-value < 0.05) in Grp_S than Grp_H irrespective of the task conditions. Also, for Grp_S, these asymmetry measures became more pronounced as task demand increased, and again, these measures have shown a correlation with their risk of fall specifically during more attention-demanding tasks that could be clinically relevant.
偏瘫患者在行走时常常表现出步态异常，导致下肢肌肉激活相关（内隐）和步态相关（外显）测量指标出现不对称（提供有关个体步态的补充信息）。除偏瘫外，在不同任务条件下行走时，即不说话行走（单任务）、倒着数数行走（双任务）以及手持物体并倒着数数行走（多任务）时，这种不对称会加剧。这凸显了量化多任务和双任务与单任务相比对步态不对称加剧影响程度的必要性。在此，我们使用集成可穿戴系统，对一组年龄匹配的偏瘫患者（Grp_S）和健康个体（Grp_H）进行了一项研究，以了解我们的系统在量化步态外显和内隐测量指标不对称性方面的潜力，偏瘫状况和不同任务条件对这些不对称测量指标的影响及其临床相关性。结果表明，我们的系统在量化步态外显和内隐测量指标不对称性方面具有潜力，并且无论任务条件如何，这些测量指标在Grp_S组中均显著高于Grp_H组（p值<0.05）。此外，对于Grp_S组，随着任务需求增加，这些不对称测量指标变得更加明显，并且这些测量指标再次显示出与他们的跌倒风险相关，特别是在更需要注意力的任务期间，这可能具有临床相关性。
