The Detrimental Effect of Stroke on Motor Adaptation.

Background: While it is evident that stroke impairs motor control, it remains unclear whether stroke impacts motor adaptation-the ability to flexibly modify movements in response to changes in the body and the environment. The mixed results in the literature may be due to differences in participants' brain lesions, sensorimotor tasks, or a combination of both.

Objective: We first sought to better understand the overall impact of stroke on motor adaptation and then to delineate the impact of lesion hemisphere and sensorimotor task on adaptation poststroke.

Matching Clinical Profiles with Interventions to Optimize Daily Stepping in People with Stroke.

Background: Individualizing interventions is imperative to optimize physical activity in people with chronic stroke. This secondary analysis grouped individuals with chronic stroke into clinical profiles based on baseline characteristics and examined if these clinical profiles preferentially benefitted from a specific rehabilitation intervention to improve daily step-activity.

Methods: Participants had non-cerebellar strokes ≥6 months prior to enrollment, were 21-85 years old, had walking speeds of 0.

Passive-dynamic ankle-foot orthoses change post-stroke lower extremity constituent work profile.

Stiffness-customized passive-dynamic ankle-foot orthoses (PD-AFOs) have been shown to reduce the mechanical cost of transport (COT) of individuals post-stroke. However, the mechanisms underlying this reduced COT are unknown. Therefore, this study aimed to identify the factors driving COT reduction with PD-AFO use for individuals post-stroke.

Predicting Walking Capacity Outcomes After Moderate to High Intensity Locomotor Training in Chronic Stroke.

Purpose: Moderate-to-high intensity locomotor training (M-HIT) is strongly recommended in stroke rehabilitation but outcomes are variable. This study aimed to identify baseline clinical characteristics that predict change in walking capacity following M-HIT in chronic stroke.

Methods: This analysis used data from the HIT-Stroke Trial (N=55), which involved up to 36 sessions of either moderate or high intensity locomotor training.

Explicit and implicit locomotor learning in individuals with chronic hemiparetic stroke.

Motor learning involves both explicit and implicit processes that are fundamental for acquiring and adapting complex motor skills. However, stroke may damage the neural substrates underlying explicit and/or implicit learning, leading to deficits in overall motor performance. Although both learning processes are typically used in concert in daily life and rehabilitation, no gait studies have determined how these processes function together after stroke when tested during a task that elicits dissociable contributions from both.