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Project

A simulation framework to probe the underlying mechanisms of impaired dynamic balance control during walking post-stroke.

Over 10,000 people suffer from a stroke in Belgium annually, leading to reduced mobility and decreased quality of life. Stroke often leads to unilateral impairments in muscle function, motor control and sensory function, which makes it hard for ambulant stroke survivors to maintain balance while walking. The multiple simultaneous changes in the neuromusculoskeletal system caused by a stroke make it hard, if not impossible, to distinguish the effects of different underlying deficits based on experiments alone, while this information has strong implications for treatment. With predictive simulations, it is possible to assess the isolated effects and interactions of deficits underlying balance and gait impairments post-stroke. Predictive simulations can answer burning what-if questions and identify causal relationships. E.g. ‘How would an increase in plantarflexor power influence walking post-stroke?’. 

In this project, we will develop personalized predictive simulations of balance during walking post-stroke, which allows us to answer a virtually endless amount of what-if questions. This highly inventive simulation framework will serve as a go-to knowledge hub for causal relationships between deficits and balance and gait impairments post-stroke and can be used to predict the effects of an intervention on movement a priori, i.e. without experimental data collection, which will have a major impact beyond the state-of-the-art in stroke research and clinical decision making.

Date:1 Oct 2021 →  Today
Keywords:Neuromusculoskeletal modeling, Dynamic balance control, Stroke rehabilitation
Disciplines:Biomechanics, Motor control, Human movement and sports sciences not elsewhere classified, Rehabilitation