Biomechanic Modeling of Sit-to-Stand to Upright Posture for Mobility Assessment of Persons With Chronic Stroke
Presented in part to the Gait and Clinical Movement Analysis Society, April 2004, Lexington, KY.
Abstract
Mazzà C, Stanhope SJ, Taviani A, Cappozzo A. Biomechanic modeling of sit-to-stand to upright posture for mobility assessment of persons with chronic stroke.
Objective
To test the suitability of using biomechanic measures associated with a minimum measured input model (MMIM) approach to assess mobility of people with chronic stroke during the execution of a sit-to-stand (STS) to upright posture motor task.
Design
Single group, observational.
Setting
Institutional settings in the United States and Italy.
Participants
Twenty-nine subjects with chronic unilateral lower-limb impairments and resultant mobility limitations secondary to stroke.
Interventions
Not applicable.
Main Outcome Measures
Manual measurement of lower-limb strength; performance-based tests including repeated chair standing, walking speed, and standing balance; and ground reactions measured with a force platform during STS and upright posture. The ground reactions were fed to a telescopic inverted pendulum model of the musculoskeletal system. Parameters representing the model outputs were compared with performance-based and strength measures to assess, respectively, motor ability and impairment-related changes in subjects’ motor strategies.
Results
The parameters derived from the model effectively differentiated between motor strategies associated with different performance-based scores, and allowed the identification of relevant difficulties encountered in STS execution. These difficulties could be associated with different strength scores. This was also true for subjects scoring the maximum in both performance-based and strength tests.
Conclusions
The MMIM is a relatively inexpensive and noninvasive approach that enhances mobility assessment of hemiparetic subjects with different motor ability levels. It provides information that correlates well with performance-based and strength scores and, in addition, it allows for subject-specific motor strategy identification.
aDepartment of Human Movement and Sport Sciences, Istituto Universitario di Scienze Motorie, Rome, Italy
bPhysical Disabilities Branch, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD
cDipartimento della Riabilitazione, AUSL11, San Miniato (PI), Italy
Reprint requests to Claudia Mazzà, PhD, Department of Human Movement and Sport Sciences, Istituto Universitario di Scienze Motorie, Piazza Lauro de Bosis 6, 00194, Rome, Italy
Supported by the Ministero dell’Istruzione, della Università e della Ricerca (Italy).
No commercial party having a direct financial interest in the results of the research supporting this article has or will confer a benefit upon the author(s) or upon any organization with which the author(s) is/are associated.
ABSTRACT