Kristina Daunoravičienė

Research of Muscular Activity during Gait of Persons with Cerebral Palsy

Assessing muscular activity during gait in CP persons could provide valuable information in prescribing appropriate treatment to reduce the consequences of cerebral palsy as well as limiting further complication in cerebral palsy children. The main goal of this study was explored working regularities of muscle pairs in children population to show dependencies and variation on gait parameters. Functional evaluation was carried out on 20 cerebral palsy patients. The research have been done by using the system EMG. A surface electrode picked up on the main groups of muscles of lower limbs: the Rectus Femoris, the Vastus Lateralis, the Medial Hamstrings, the Lateral Gastrocnemius, and the Anterior Tibialis. There were several phases to the signal approach such as: data acquisition, data pre-processing, data modeling, data analysis and interpretation. From the results seen that for each task subjects have different strategies for keeping balance during walk depending on the basic level of muscle contraction or antagonistic and synergistic contraction required for that activity.

Differences in temporal gait parameters between multiple sclerosisand healthy people

Multiple sclerosis (MS) causes severe gait problems and there are limited studies to quantitatively identify the specific gait parameters that are affected. The aim of the current study was to characterize the temporal gait parameters in MS patients and ascribe them to clinical variables, in order to enable target-oriented management. A total of 14 MS patients and 11 healthy controls (CO) were evaluated clinically by expanded disability status scale (EDSS) and quantitatively by the Timed 25 Foot Walk (T25FW) using non-invasive wireless inertial sensors. The self-selected walking velocity was used as a covariate in the analysis to ensure that group differences were not due to differences in walking velocity between the MS and CO groups. Reduced step time and cadence were seen in patients with MS. We also found significant correlations between biomechanical gait parameters and EDSS score, which provides a clinical rating of disease severity. Temporal gait variability noted as associated to slower walk in MS.