{"doi":"10.1101/2020.05.06.080705","title":"Effects of targeted assistance and perturbations on the relationship between pelvis motion and step width in people with chronic stroke","abstract":"Abstract Background People with chronic stroke (PwCS) often exhibit a weakened relationship between pelvis motion and paretic step width, a behavior important for gait stabilization. We have developed a force-field able to manipulate this relationship on a step-by-step basis. Objective The objective of this study was to investigate the effects of a single exposure to our novel force-field on the step-by-step modulation of paretic step width among PwCS, quantified by the partial correlation between mediolateral pelvis displacement at the start of a step and paretic step width (step start paretic ρ disp ). Methods Following a 3-minute period of normal walking, participants were exposed to 5-minutes of either force-field assistance (n=10; pushing the swing leg toward a mechanically-appropriate step width) or perturbations (n=10; pushing the swing leg away from a mechanically-appropriate step width). This period of assistance or perturbations was followed by a 1-minute catch period to identify any after-effects, a sign of sensorimotor adaptation. Results We found that assistance did not have a significant direct effect or after-effect on step start paretic ρ disp . In contrast, perturbations directly reduced step start paretic ρ disp (p=0.004), but were followed by an after-effect in which this metric was increased above the baseline level (p=0.02). Conclusions These initial results suggest that PwCS have the ability to strengthen the link between pelvis motion and paretic foot placement if exposed to a novel mechanical environment, which may benefit gait stability. Future work is needed to determine whether this effect can be extended with repeated exposure to force-field perturbations.","journal":"bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory)","year":2020,"id":124843,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":2,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9616,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2020-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":425487,"name":"Holly A. Knapp","orcid":null,"position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":425488,"name":"Alyssa N. Chesnutt","orcid":null,"position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":425489,"name":"Alexa Agne","orcid":null,"position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":377251,"name":"Jesse C. Dean","orcid":"0000-0003-2034-4217","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":425486,"name":"Nicholas K. Reimold","orcid":null,"position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":53,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-18T23:15:11.632153Z","pmid":null,"pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}