Abstract
The human leg joints play a major role in balance control during walking. They facilitate leg swing, and modulate the ground (re)action forces to prevent a fall. The aim of this study is to provide and explore data on perturbed human walking to gain a better understanding of balance recovery during walking through joint-level control. Healthy walking subjects randomly received anteroposterior and mediolateral pelvis perturbations at the instance of toe-off. The open-source modeling tool OpenSim was used to perform inverse kinematics and inverse dynamics analysis. We found hip joint involvement in accelerating and then halting leg swing, suggesting active preparation for foot placement. Additionally, responses in the stance leg’s ankle and hip joints contribute to balance recovery by decreasing the body’s velocity in the perturbation direction. Modulation also occurs in the plane perpendicular to the perturbation direction, to safeguard balance in both planes. Finally, the recorded muscle activity suggests both spinal and supra-spinal mediated contributions to balance recovery, scaling with perturbation magnitude and direction. The presented data provide a unique and multi-joint insight in the complexity of both frontal and sagittal plane balance control during human walking in terms of joint angles, moments, and power, as well as muscle EMG responses.
Highlights
Reacting to unexpected disturbances during walking is often a necessity to continue the gait cycle
We introduce the following references to events in the gait cycle: toe-off right (TOR), heel strike right (HSR), toe-off left (TOL) and heel strike left (HSL)
Statistical analysis was not used to analyze all data, given its large amount, nor was a high-level descriptor derived from the data for statistical testing, as this would no longer reflect a joint level
Summary
Reacting to unexpected disturbances during walking is often a necessity to continue the gait cycle. Neuromuscular walking models can be used to synthesize gait based on neural feedback loops from the muscles driving the leg joints[14,15] Optimizing such models to mimic data collected in humans recovering from perturbations could provide insight in the underlying muscular and neural parameters involved in reactive balance, and help drive powered lower extremity assistive devices. It has been shown that hip abductor muscle activity in the swing leg correlated with the ML distance between the COM and the stance foot during unperturbed walking[16] These findings suggests some form of proportional swing leg control, but it is unclear whether the swing leg is accelerated stronger in the direction of the fall with increasing perturbation www.nature.com/scientificreports/. AP perturbations are expected to result in modulation of ankle plantar- and dorsiflexor moments when such motions are possible
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
