Physiological Reports, 2019 · DOI: 10.14814/phy2.14328 · Published: January 1, 2019
This study aimed to understand how spinal cord injuries affect a person's sense of body position, specifically in the ankle, while walking. The ability to sense body position, called proprioception, is important for movement control. Researchers used a robotic device to test ankle proprioception during walking in people with incomplete spinal cord injuries. The researchers measured how well participants could detect small changes in ankle position created by the robot while they walked. They also looked at how factors like age, sex, pain, and walking speed might affect this sense of position. The study found that people with spinal cord injuries had a harder time detecting these changes compared to people without such injuries. The findings suggest that ankle proprioception is impaired during walking in individuals with incomplete spinal cord injury. This understanding could help in designing better treatments to improve walking ability in people with spinal cord injuries and other neurological conditions.
The developed test can now be used to better characterize proprioception in population with other neurological conditions and has potential to maximize functional recovery during gait training in those populations.
The protocol developed in the present study could therefore also be used as a baseline assessment tool to potentially predict therapy outcome and help in patient screening.
Limited information can be provided to the clinician for the design of targeted, patient-oriented interventions.