Spatiotemporal variability after stroke reflects more than just slow walking velocity.

Background: Increased spatiotemporal gait variability is considered a clinical biomarker of ageing and pathology, and a predictor of future falls. Nevertheless, it is unclear whether the increased spatiotemporal variability observed in persons with stroke is directly related to the pathology or simply reflects their choice of walking velocity.

Research Question: Does increased spatiotemporal gait variability directly relate to motor coordination deficits after stroke?

Methods: Forty persons with stroke participated in this cross-sectional study. Participants performed the lower-extremity motor coordination test (LEMOCOT) on an electronic mat equipped with force sensors. Then, participants walked for 120 s on a computerized treadmill at their comfortable walking velocity. For the LEMOCOT we used the traditional score of in-target touch count and computed the absolute and variable error around the targets. For gait variability, we extracted the standard deviation of step time, step length, step velocity, and step width. Using linear modeling, we tested the correlations of gait variability with the outcome measures from the LEMOCOT, after controlling for walking velocity.

Results: The variability in step time, step length and step width correlated with walking velocity, while the variability in step velocity did not. After controlling for walking velocity, we observed that the LEMOCOT score correlated with the variance in step time, and the variable error in the LEMOCOT correlated with the variance in step length, in step width, and in step velocity. No significant correlation with any of the velocity-controlled step parameters was found for the absolute error in the LEMOCOT.

Significance: Decreased performance in the LEMOCOT was associated with increased spatiotemporal variability in persons with stroke, regardless of their walking velocity. Our results demonstrate the connection between lower-extremity coordination impairments and deficits in gait function.