Variability of Leg Kinematics during Overground Walking in Persons with Chronic Incomplete Spinal Cord Injury

Incomplete spinal cord injuries disrupt neural pathways critical for walking, leading to inconsistent leg movements. This study investigates how these injuries affect the variability in leg movements during walking. The study compares the variability in foot placement and joint movements between individuals with incomplete spinal cord injuries and healthy controls, examining how walking speed and assistive devices influence this variability. The findings suggest that increased variability in leg movements indicates the severity of motor impairment and could be a target for therapies aimed at restoring walking ability after a spinal cord injury.

• 1
  Persons with iSCI exhibited greater kinematic variability than controls, which scaled with deficits in overground walking speed.
• 2
  Significant correlation between ACC and end-point variability, and with walking speed, indicates that both are markers of walking performance.
• 3
  Hip-knee and hip-ankle ACC discriminated AD use, indicating that ACC may capture AD-specific control strategies.