Strategies Applied to Control Gait Initiation after Standing-up from a Seated Position

In this study, we have investigated the combined task of sit-to-walk (STW) under different time constraints. STW can be viewed as gait initiation (GI) after/while rising from a seat (sit-to-stand: STS). Six healthy adults performed 100 STS and STW trials under different time constraints. Movements were initiated following a visual cue. Participants were instructed to change the final task from standing to walking or from walking to standing depending on a second visual cue which might be given after the first one. For all combined tasks including a GI component, it was observed that the anticipatory postural adjustment, which is a characteristic of GI from standing posture, was present after seat-off with some modifications. Comparison of different combined tasks with elementary tasks of STS and GI showed that, STW was not performed merely as a successive combination of two elementary tasks of STS and GI. Rather, some terminal characteristics of STS and some initial characteristics of GI were merged together. The merging scheme was to a large extent individual-dependent.

کلیدواژه ها:

Sit-to-walk ، gait initiation ، combined task ، anticipatory posture adjustment