Postural control during gait termination and prehension

Hwigeum Jeong; Natalie Cabiles; Richard E A van Emmerik

doi:10.1016/j.gaitpost.2024.04.020

Postural control during gait termination and prehension

Gait Posture. 2024 Apr 27:112:46-52. doi: 10.1016/j.gaitpost.2024.04.020. Online ahead of print.

Authors

Hwigeum Jeong¹, Natalie Cabiles², Richard E A van Emmerik²

Affiliations

¹ Motor Control Laboratory, Department of Kinesiology, University of Massachusetts Amherst, Amherst, MA 01003, USA. Electronic address: hwigeumjeong@umass.edu.
² Motor Control Laboratory, Department of Kinesiology, University of Massachusetts Amherst, Amherst, MA 01003, USA.

PMID: 38735092
DOI: 10.1016/j.gaitpost.2024.04.020

Abstract

Background: Challenges to postural stability emerge in the transition from locomotion to a standing posture as during gait termination, often accompanied by another task (e.g., opening a door), which may complicate control. However, less is known about postural control during terminating gait while engaged in a secondary manual task.

Research question: What are the changes in postural control when terminating gait with and without a prehension task?

Methods: In a cross-sectional design, 15 healthy young adults (M=8, F=7; 27±2 years; 69±13 kg; 171±8 cm) underwent both a single task gait termination (GTO) and dual task (gait termination plus reaching; GTR). Postural Time-to-Contact (TtC) was measured using Center of Pressure (CoP) and the sternum position in anterior-posterior (AP) and medial-lateral (ML) directions over two different phases: preparatory phase and stabilization phase. Five successful trials were recorded to obtain a mean TtC. For statistical analysis of TtC, a two-tailed paired t-test was used (p =.05) as normality was satisfied.

Results: For the preparatory phase, there were no differences for the CoP, but TtC of the sternum position in AP was shorter in GTR than GTO (p =.001). Meanwhile, for the stabilization phase, TtCs of both the CoP and sternum position were longer in GTR in both AP and ML directions (p's <.001).

Significance: We suggest that for the preparatory phase, the shorter TtC of the sternum position with intact TtC of the CoP in GTR indicates that healthy young individuals are flexible, in that they smoothly integrate CoP control with the upper body demands required to also perform the prehension task. Meanwhile, for the stabilization phase, the longer TtC in dual termination and prehension task indicates that the perturbation imposed by the prehension movement did not result in reduced stabilization when returning to an upright posture.

Keywords: Base of support; Center of pressure; Gait termination; Postural control; Prehension; Time-to-contact.