Principal Characteristics of Affected and Unaffected Side Trunk Movement and Gait Event Parameters during Hemiplegic...

This study describe the characteristics of hemiplegic stroke gait with principal component analysis (PCA) of trunk movement (TM) and gait event (GE) parameters by the inertial measurement unit (IMU) sensors: (1) Background: This process can determine dominant variables through multivariate examination to identify the affected, unaffected, and healthy lower-limb sides; (2) Methods: The study monitored forty patients with stroke and twenty-eight healthy individuals comprising the control group for comparison. The IMU sensors were attached to each subject while performing a 6 m walking test. Sixteen variables extracted from the measured data were divided into 7 GE and 9 TM variables explaining pelvis tilt, oblique, and rotation. (3) Results: The tilt range variables of the trunk movement on the affected and unaffected sides were lower than those of the healthy side; this showed between-group differences in various GE variables. For the healthy and affected sides, 80% of variances were explained with 2 or 3 PCs involving only a few dominant variables; and (4) Conclusions: The difference between each side leg should be considered during the development of a diagnosis method. This research can be utilized to develop functional assessment tools for personalized treatment and to design appropriate training protocols.