Superposition principle applies to human walking with two simultaneous interventions

Abstract

Gait rehabilitation therapies provide adjusted sensory inputs to modify and retrain walking patterns in an impaired gait. Asymmetric walking is a common gait abnormality, especially among stroke survivors. Physical therapy interventions using adaptation techniques (such as treadmill training, auditory stimulation, visual biofeedback, etc.) train gait toward symmetry. However, a single rehabilitation therapy comes up short of affecting all aspects of gait performance. Multiple-rehabilitation therapy applies simultaneous stimuli to affect a wider range of gait parameters and create flexible training regiments. Understanding gait responses to individual and jointly applied stimuli is important for developing improved and efficient therapies. In this study, 16 healthy subjects participated in a four-session experiment to study gait kinetics and spatiotemporal outcomes under training. Each session consisted of two stimuli, treadmill training and auditory stimulation, with symmetric or asymmetric ratios between legs. The study hypothesizes a linear model for gait response patterns. We found that the superposition principle largely applies to the gait response under two simultaneous stimuli. The linear models developed in this study fit the actual data from experiments with the r-squared values of 0.95 or more.