Study to Determine a Prognostic Cutoff Values of the Coagulation Analyte D-dimer for ICU Admission among COVID-19 Patients.

Introduction: The measured D-dimer levels in coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) patients have no specific cutoff to find the progression of coagulopathy and severity.

Aim: This study aimed to determine prognostic cutoff values of D-dimer for intensive care unit (ICU) admission among COVID-19 patients.

Materials And Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted in Sree Balaji Medical College and Hospital, Chennai, during a period of 6 months.

A Brake-Based Overground Gait Rehabilitation Device for Altering Propulsion Impulse Symmetry.

This paper introduces a new device for gait rehabilitation, the gait propulsion trainer (GPT). It consists of two main components (a stationary device and a wearable system) that work together to apply periodic stance-phase resistance as the user walks overground. The stationary device provides the resistance forces via a cable that tethers the user's pelvis to a magnetic-particle brake.

Effects of wearing a head-mounted display during a standard clinical test of dynamic balance.

Background: The use of virtual reality (VR) in clinical settings has increased with the introduction of affordable, easy-to-use head-mounted displays (HMDs). However, some have raised concerns about the effects that HMDs have on posture and locomotion, even without the projection of a virtual scene, which may be different across ages.

Research Question: How does HMD wear impact the kinematic measures in younger and older adults?

Methods: Twelve healthy young and sixteen older adults participated in two testing conditions: 1) TUG with no HMD and 2) TUG with an HMD displaying a scene of the actual environment (TUG).

Visual dependence affects the motor behavior of older adults during the Timed Up and Go (TUG) test.

Background: Older adults show greater postural instabilities under misleading visual cues relative to younger adults. We investigated the effects of age-related visual dependence on motor performance under increased attention demands by adding a motor task and visual stimulus to the Timed Up and Go (TUG) test sub-components.

Method: We designed a cross-sectional quantitative study.

Music to One's Ears: Familiarity and Music Engagement in People With Parkinson's Disease.

Parkinson's disease (PD) is a complex diagnosis commonly associated with motor dysfunction, but known to comprise cognitive, psychiatric, and mood disturbances as well. Music has been successfully used to address motor and non-motor symptoms of PD. Still, little is known about the nature of an individual with PD's experience and relationship with music on conceptual and emotional levels, which may factor into their engagement in music-based techniques to ameliorate impairments.

Using a Split-belt Treadmill to Evaluate Generalization of Human Locomotor Adaptation.

Understanding the mechanisms underlying locomotor learning helps researchers and clinicians optimize gait retraining as part of motor rehabilitation. However, studying human locomotor learning can be challenging. During infancy and childhood, the neuromuscular system is quite immature, and it is unlikely that locomotor learning during early stages of development is governed by the same mechanisms as in adulthood.

Making Sense of Cerebellar Contributions to Perceptual and Motor Adaptation.

The cerebellum is thought to adapt movements to changes in the environment in order to update an implicit understanding of the association between our motor commands and their sensory consequences. This trial-by-trial motor recalibration in response to external perturbations is frequently impaired in people with cerebellar damage. In healthy people, adaptation to motor perturbations is also known to induce a form of sensory perceptual recalibration.

Neuromechanical interactions between the limbs during human locomotion: an evolutionary perspective with translation to rehabilitation.

During bipedal locomotor activities, humans use elements of quadrupedal neuronal limb control. Evolutionary constraints can help inform the historical ancestry for preservation of these core control elements support transfer of the huge body of quadrupedal non-human animal literature to human rehabilitation. In particular, this has translational applications for neurological rehabilitation after neurotrauma where interlimb coordination is lost or compromised.

Gait Transitions in Human Infants: Coping with Extremes of Treadmill Speed.

Spinal pattern generators in quadrupedal animals can coordinate different forms of locomotion, like trotting or galloping, by altering coordination between the limbs (interlimb coordination). In the human system, infants have been used to study the subcortical control of gait, since the cerebral cortex and corticospinal tract are immature early in life. Like other animals, human infants can modify interlimb coordination to jump or step.

Gait speed influences aftereffect size following locomotor adaptation, but only in certain environments.

Movements learned in one set of conditions may not generalize to other conditions. For example, practicing walking on a split-belt treadmill subsequently changes coordination between the legs during normal ("tied-belt") treadmill walking; however, there is limited generalization of these aftereffects to natural walking over the ground. We hypothesized that generalization of split-belt treadmill adaptation to over-ground walking would be improved by maintaining consistency in other task variables, specifically gait speed.

Effects of traumatic brain injury on locomotor adaptation.

Background And Purpose: Locomotor adaptation is a form of short-term learning that enables gait modifications and reduces movement errors when the environment changes. This adaptation is critical for community ambulation for example, when walking on different surfaces. While many individuals with traumatic brain injury (TBI) recover basic ambulation, less is known about recovery of more complex locomotor skills, like adaptation.

Developing a Gait Enhancing Mobile Shoe to Alter Over-Ground Walking Coordination.

This paper presents a Gait Enhancing Mobile Shoe (GEMS) that mimics the desirable kinematics of a split-belt treadmill except that it does so over ground. Split-belt treadmills, with two separate treads running at different speeds, have been found useful in the rehabilitation of persons with asymmetric walking patterns. Although in preliminary testing, beneficial after-effects have been recorded, various drawbacks include the stationary nature of the split-belt treadmill and the inability to keep a person on the split-belt treadmill for an extended period of time.

Modulating locomotor adaptation with cerebellar stimulation.

Human locomotor adaptation is necessary to maintain flexibility of walking. Several lines of research suggest that the cerebellum plays a critical role in motor adaptation. In this study we investigated the effects of noninvasive stimulation of the cerebellum to enhance locomotor adaptation.

Motion controlled gait enhancing mobile shoe for rehabilitation.

Walking on a split-belt treadmill, which has two belts that can be run at different speeds, has been shown to improve walking patterns post-stroke. However, these improvements are only temporarily retained once individuals transition to walking over ground. We hypothesize that longer-lasting effects would be observed if the training occurred during natural walking over ground, as opposed to on a treadmill.

Design and Pilot Study of a Gait Enhancing Mobile Shoe.

Hemiparesis is a frequent and disabling consequence of stroke and can lead to asymmetric and inefficient walking patterns. Training on a split-belt treadmill, which has two separate treads driving each leg at a different speed, can correct such asymmetries post-stroke. However, the effects of split-belt treadmill training only partially transfer to everyday walking over ground and extended training sessions are required to achieve long-lasting effects.

Motor adaptation training for faster relearning.

Adaptation is an error-driven motor learning process that can account for predictable changes in the environment (e.g., walking on ice) or in ourselves (e.

Locomotor adaptation.

Motor learning is an essential part of human behavior, but poorly understood in the context of walking control. Here, we discuss our recent work on locomotor adaptation, which is an error driven motor learning process used to alter spatiotemporal elements of walking. Locomotor adaptation can be induced using a split-belt treadmill that controls the speed of each leg independently.

Multi-frequency arm cycling reveals bilateral locomotor coupling to increase movement symmetry.

Upright stance has allowed for substantial flexibility in how the upper limbs interact with each other: the arms can be coordinated in alternating, synchronous, or asymmetric patterns. While synchronization is thought to be the default mode of coordination during bimanual movement, there is little evidence for any bilateral coupling during locomotor-like arm cycling movements. Multi-frequency tasks have been used to reveal bilateral coupling during bimanual movements, thus here we used a multi-frequency task to determine whether the arms are coupled during arm cycling.

Younger is not always better: development of locomotor adaptation from childhood to adulthood.

New walking patterns can be learned over short timescales (i.e., adapted in minutes) using a split-belt treadmill that controls the speed of each leg independently.

Unique characteristics of motor adaptation during walking in young children.

Children show precocious ability in the learning of languages; is this the case with motor learning? We used split-belt walking to probe motor adaptation (a form of motor learning) in children. Data from 27 children (ages 8-36 mo) were compared with those from 10 adults. Children walked with the treadmill belts at the same speed (tied belt), followed by walking with the belts moving at different speeds (split belt) for 8-10 min, followed again by tied-belt walking (postsplit).

Split-belt treadmill adaptation shows different functional networks for fast and slow human walking.

New walking patterns can be learned over short time scales (i.e., adapted in minutes) using a split-belt treadmill that controls the speed of each leg independently.

The quadrupedal nature of human bipedal locomotion.

During rhythmic movement, arm activity contributes to the neural excitation of leg muscles. These observations are consistent with the emergence of human bipedalism and nonhuman primate arboreal quadrupedal walking. These neural and biomechanical linkages could be exploited in rehabilitation after neurotrauma to allow the arms to give the legs a helping hand during gait rehabilitation.