Our goal is to better understand how neuromuscular impairments in people post-stroke affect their gait performance by using simulation to predict the optimal gait patterns for musculoskeletal models with simulated impairments.
Several neuromuscular impairments (e.g., hemiparesis) occur after an individual has a stroke, and these impairments primarily affect one side of the body more than the other. Predictive musculoskeletal modeling presents an opportunity to investigate how a specific impairment affects gait performance post-stroke. Therefore, the aims of our project are to use to predictive simulation to quantify the spatiotemporal asymmetries and changes to metabolic cost that emerge when muscle strength is unilaterally reduced. We used OpenSim Moco with modified sagittal-plane musculoskeletal models to better understand the relationship between unilateral muscle weakness, gait asymmetry and metabolic cost.