Mate, Kedar

Most falls occur while walking, making gait quality a logical therapeutic target. Many temporo-spatial variables have been implicated in increased fall risk, but these are dependent upon kinematic parameters of the joints involved in the gait cycle. The widespread availability of wearable sensors has made the acquisition of kinematic data feasible, and those related to the ankle are most relevant, as they relate most closely to causes of falls, trips, slips, and mis-steps. The purpose of this study is to estimate the extent to which measures of ankle angular velocity (AV) during walking are associated with falls. This is a comparative study of ankle AV metrics between people who have or have not experienced a fall in the past year. Data came from experimental use of the Heel2Toe™ sensor in a variety of settings, including demonstrations and clinical research studies. The sample comprised 387 participants, of whom 68 (17.6%) self-reported falling in the past year. Logistic regression with a natural cubic spline with 3 degrees of freedom identified AV of the angle at heel strike to discriminate between fallers and non-fallers, and the regression parameters were used to propose an algorithm to estimate fall risk. Applying the algorithm to the existing data yielded a range of probabilities from 0.0480 to 0.7245 depending on age of the person assessed. Further testing of this algorithm in different samples is warranted.

AbstractThe health‐related quality of life of patients with extremity soft tissue sarcoma (STS) is not precisely captured by current patient‐reported outcome measures. Although functional impairment is central to their concerns, multiple sources of distress, emotional restoration, coping strategies, and somatic symptoms are crucial in approaching patients with extremity STS.

Abstract Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) is widely used for therapeutic and research purposes such as cognitive studies, treatment of psychiatric disorders, and Parkinson's disease. In research, TMS is perhaps the only technique that can establish a functional connection between brain regions and task performance. In gait research, often TMS is used to identify the extent to which leg motor cortex is involved in different phases on gait cycle. However, using TMS in gait can be challenging for several technical reasons and physiological variations. The objective of this narrative review is to summarize literature in the field of TMS and gait research and present comprehensive challenges. A comprehensive literature search was conducted in PubMed and Google Scholar to identify all relevant literature on TMS and gait. Several critical challenges could potentially impact the findings. For instance, the use of different protocols to obtain motor threshold. This review presents some of the critical challenges in applying TMS during gait. It is important to be aware of these variations and utilize strategies to mitigate some challenges.