Pendular energy transduction in the different phases of gait cycle in post-stroke subjects

MAIN: To analyze spatiotemporal gait parameters and the body center of mass (CoM) energy transduction at self-selected speed walking in a group of older patients with stroke.

A cross-sectional study, fifteen subjects with 4.06 years post ̵stroke hemiparesis (eleven men and four women) and fifteen healthy subjects (four men and eleven women) participate in this study. Pendulum-like determining variables; Recovery (R) and Congruity percentage (%Cong) were analyzed in addition to immediate pendular re-conversion (Rint) during the phases in which the gait cycle is usually divided in clinical evaluations.

Healthy subjects walked faster that stroke group (p = 0.001). %Cong was significantly higher in post-stroke respect to healthy subjects (p = 0.05). Rint showed significant differences between the groups for all phases (p = 0.05). The relation between speed and R was confirmed, for healthy (r = 0.67, p = 0.006) and post-stroke subjects (r = 0.851, p = 0.001), %Cong y Rint (r = -0.79, p = 0.001), (r = -0.93, p = 0.001) and periods of double support (r = -0.76, p = 0.001), (r = 0.69, p = 0.004) respectively.

Alteration of pendular mechanism in subjects post-stroke is associated mainly with energy transduction; mechanical energy recovered during double support phases in healthy and post-stroke subjects follows a different trend, in post-stroke subjects, a longer duration of the double support is associated with less energy loss.