Changes in motor actions in the face of varying task constraints.
Daekyoo Kim, Xia Pu, Nicole Woo and 1 others
PMID 30125715WHAT IT FOUND
Healthy young adults changed walking differently when asked to step over obstacles or keep to a metronome.
When obstacle crossing and metronome were combined, they stepped sooner than the beat at every pace.
Key findings
01As obstacle height increased, participants took longer and wider steps, while cadence was higher for low obstacles than for medium or high obstacles.
02Faster metronome paces made participants take longer and wider steps and spend less time with both feet on the ground.
03When crossing obstacles to a metronome, participants stepped sooner than the beat at all paces, and at faster paces the leading leg deviated less than the trailing leg.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for PTs
Read the rest of this summary
You get three full summaries a month, free, and we do not ask for a card. Search, the TL;DRs and your library stay unlimited either way.
What it does not show
The study tested 92 healthy college-aged students who could walk independently and had normal BMI, so it says little about patients with balance, walking, or neurologic problems. Different participants completed each task, so the results do not show how one person adapts across spatial and temporal constraints. The tasks were short, barefoot, and done in a laboratory, which may not match clinic or community walking. Obstacle heights were fixed while metronome paces were individualized, so the difficulty of the two constraints may not have been comparable.
Declared interests
The article is listed as supported by NIH extramural research, and the authors declared no conflicts of interest.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read the gait changes as evidence that metronome walking or obstacle crossing improves walking in patients. The study tested healthy college-aged students in a laboratory, not patients, and gait did not differ between initial and final baselines.