Modular organization across changing task demands in healthy and poststroke gait

Our goal was to link impaired module patterns to mobility task performance in persons poststroke. Kinematic, kinetic, and electromyography (EMG) data were collected from 27 poststroke subjects and from 17 healthy control subjects. Each subject walked on a treadmill at their self‐selected walking speed in addition to a randomized block design of four steady‐state mobility capability tasks: walking at maximum speed, and walking at self‐selected speed with maximum cadence, maximum step length, and maximum step height. The number of modules required to account for >90% of the variability accounted for the EMG patterns of each muscle was found using nonnegative matrix factorization. Module compositions of each module during each task were compared to the average module in self‐selected walking using Pearson's correlations. Additionally, to compare module timing, the percentage of integrated module activation timing within six regions of the gait cycle was calculated. Statistical analyses were used to compare the correlations and integrated timing across tasks. Mobility performance measures of task capability were speed change, cadence change, step length change, and step height change. We found that although some poststroke subjects had a smaller number of modules than healthy subjects, the same underlying modules (number and composition) in each subject (both healthy and poststroke) that contribute to steady‐state walking also contribute to specific mobility capability tasks. In healthy subjects, we found that module timing, but not composition, changes when functional task demands are altered during walking. However, this adaptability in module timing, in addition to mobility capability, is limited in poststroke subjects.