Motor adaptation to continuous lateral trunk support force during walking improves trunk postural control and walking in children with cerebral palsy: A pilot study

Shijun Yan, Seoung Hoon Park, Weena Dee, Renee Keefer, Ana Marie Rojas, William Zev Rymer, Ming Wu*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

Purpose: To determine whether the application of continuous lateral trunk support forces during walking would improve trunk postural control and improve gait performance in children with CP. Materials and methods: Nineteen children with spastic CP participated in this study (8 boys; mean age 10.6 ± 3.4 years old). Fourteen of them were tested in the following sessions: 1) walking on a treadmill without force for 1-min (baseline), 2) with lateral trunk support force for 7-min (adaptation), and 3) without force for 1-min (post-adaptation). Overground walking pre/post treadmill walking. Five of them were tested using a similar protocol but without trunk support force (i.e., control). Results: Participants from the experimental group showed enhancement in gait phase dependent muscle activation of rectus abdominis in late adaptation period compared to baseline (P = 0.005), which was retained during the post-adaptation period (P = 0.036), reduced variability of the peak trunk oblique angle during the late post-adaptation period (P = 0.023), and increased overground walking speed after treadmill walking (P = 0.032). Participants from the control group showed modest changes in kinematics and EMG during treadmill and overground walking performance. These results suggest that applying continuous lateral trunk support during walking is likely to induce learning of improved trunk postural control in children with CP, which may partially transfer to overground walking, although we do not have a firm conclusion due to the small sample size in the control group.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Article number103258
JournalHuman Movement Science
Volume97
DOIs
StatePublished - Oct 2024

Funding

This work was supported by the National Institute of Health (R01NS115487).

Keywords

  • Cerebral palsy
  • Children
  • Locomotion
  • Motor adaptation
  • Trunk postural control

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Biophysics
  • Experimental and Cognitive Psychology
  • Orthopedics and Sports Medicine

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