Coactivation between Tibialis Anterior and Soleus during Chronic Post-Stroke Gait.

Ana Lusa Dias Tinoco1 Augusta Silva2 Rubim Santos Andreia Sousa
1 th

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4 year student of Physiotherapy at Escola Superior de Tecnologias da Sade do Instituto Politcnico do

Porto (ESTSP); analdtinoco@gmail.com .

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PT, MSc, Physiotherapy Professor at ESTSP. PhD, Director of the Center for the Study of Movement of Human Activity and Coordinator of the Scientific

Area of Physics at ESTSP.

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PT, MSc, Professor at ESTSP.

ABSTRACT: Muscle coactivation between agonist and antagonist is an essential element of postural stability during gait. Atypical muscle activation patterns, including excessive coactivation of the ankle muscles during gait, are reported in individuals with stroke sequels, influencing, significantly, work return, community participation or other daily life activities. This work, seeks to verify the existence of alterations in terms of time and magnitude on the coactivation indexes between tibialis anterior and soleus in chronic stroke patients and establish associations between them and the ground reaction forces during gait. In order to verify these assumptions, two samples were analyzed: one formed by six stroke patients and another by nine healthy individuals with similar anthropometric characteristics. In each subject, electromyographic activity of the mentioned muscles and ground reaction forces, through a force platform, were studied. Although still under analysis, the first results show differences in electromyographic activity between groups and between limbs in hemiparetic individuals, as in ground reaction forces during stance phase. Such results may thus be an element to control during rehabilitation to optimize the function. Keywords: stroke, hemiparesis, gait, coactivation, electromyography, ground reaction forces.