Impact of Task-Fit Misalignment and the Director of Clinical Education: A Grounded Theory Study.

Introduction: The roles and responsibilities of the director of clinical education (DCE) are of interest in the academic physical therapist (PT) community. This study explored the impact of professional and positional task characteristics of the DCE position on task-fit misalignment within PT education programs. Task-fit explores how the tasks of a particular job align with the appropriately trained person who holds the position.

Evaluating the Neural Underpinnings of Motivation for Walking Exercise.

Objective: Motivation is critically important for rehabilitation, exercise, and motor performance, but its neural basis is poorly understood. Recent correlational research suggests that the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (dmPFC) may be involved in motivation for walking activity and/or descending motor output. This study experimentally evaluated brain activity changes in periods of additional motivation during walking exercise and tested how these brain activity changes relate to self-reported exercise motivation and walking speed.

Motivation-related influences on fNIRS signals during walking exercise: a permutation entropy approach.

Cortical activity is typically indexed by analyzing functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) signals in terms of the mean (e.g., mean oxygenated hemoglobin; HbO).

Optimal Intensity and Duration of Walking Rehabilitation in Patients With Chronic Stroke: A Randomized Clinical Trial.

Importance: For walking rehabilitation after stroke, training intensity and duration are critical dosing parameters that lack optimization.

Objective: To assess the optimal training intensity (vigorous vs moderate) and minimum training duration (4, 8, or 12 weeks) needed to maximize immediate improvement in walking capacity in patients with chronic stroke.

Design, Setting, And Participants: This multicenter randomized clinical trial using an intent-to-treat analysis was conducted from January 2019 to April 2022 at rehabilitation and exercise research laboratories.

Preliminary Outcomes of Combined Treadmill and Overground High-Intensity Interval Training in Ambulatory Chronic Stroke.

Purpose: Locomotor high-intensity interval training (HIIT) is a promising intervention for stroke rehabilitation. However, overground translation of treadmill speed gains has been somewhat limited, some important outcomes have not been tested and baseline response predictors are poorly understood. This pilot study aimed to guide future research by assessing preliminary outcomes of combined overground and treadmill HIIT.

Moderate-intensity exercise versus high-intensity interval training to recover walking post-stroke: protocol for a randomized controlled trial.

Background: Stroke results in neurologic impairments and aerobic deconditioning that contribute to limited walking capacity which is a major barrier post-stroke. Current exercise recommendations and stroke rehabilitation guidelines recommend moderate-intensity aerobic training post-stroke. Locomotor high-intensity interval training is a promising new strategy that has shown significantly greater improvements in aerobic fitness and motor performance than moderate-intensity aerobic training in other populations.

Functional magnetic resonance brain imaging of imagined walking to study locomotor function after stroke.

Objective: Imagined walking has yielded insights into normal locomotor control and could improve understanding of neurologic gait dysfunction. This study evaluated brain activation during imagined walking in chronic stroke.

Methods: Ten persons with stroke and 10 matched controls completed a walking test battery and a magnetic resonance imaging session including imagined walking and knee extension tasks.

Locomotor training intensity after stroke: Effects of interval type and mode.

: High-intensity interval training (HIIT) is a promising strategy for improving gait and fitness after stroke, but optimal parameters remain unknown. We tested the effects of short vs long interval type and over-ground vs treadmill mode on training intensity. : Using a repeated measures design, 10 participants with chronic hemiparesis performed 12 HIIT sessions over 4 weeks, alternating between short and long-interval HIIT sessions.