Curved walking in individuals with stroke

Despite the significance of turning during walking in everyday life there has been very little research on turning capacity in ambulatory individuals suffering from stroke-related hemiparesis. In able-bodied gait, temporal features required for straight walking become increasingly asymmetric when travelling along a path of increasing curvature. For example, the inner leg of the turn remains in single support longer while the outer leg swings around to direct the body along the curved path. During straight walking post-stroke, stance duration on the non-paretic side tends to be longer compared to the paretic side. The tendency to favor weight bearing on the non-paretic limb might restrict the extent to which interlimb asymmetry can be adapted to increasing path curvature during turns to the paretic side (ie: when the paretic leg is the inner leg of the turn). Hence, turns to the non-paretic side may be favored. The purpose of this study was to examine the pattern of asymmetry in stroke survivors when walking along a curved path. It was hypothesized that stroke participants would show more difficulty turning to their paretic side than turning to their non-paretic side.