Gait adaptations during overground walking and multidirectional oscillations of the visual field in a virtual reality headset

Authors: D. Martelli¹*, B. Xia¹*, A. Prado¹, S.K. Agrawal¹,²

*Equal contribution

¹Department of Mechanical Engineering, Columbia University ²Department of Rehabilitation and Regenerative Medicine, Columbia University

Publication: Gait & Posture, 67, 251–256 (2019)

DOI: 10.1016/j.gaitpost.2018.10.029

Abstract

Virtual reality (VR) has been used to study locomotor adaptability during balance-demanding tasks, but little is known about gait adaptations during overground walking. This study investigated how twelve healthy young adults modified and adapted their gait during overground walking in a virtual environment (VE) with continuous multidirectional perturbations of the visual field while wearing a VR headset. Participants walked on an instrumented walkway in four conditions: real environment, VE, and VE with antero-posterior and medio-lateral visual perturbations. Results showed that participants took shorter strides with higher variability in the VE and during perturbations, with medio-lateral perturbations causing greater effects. Over time, participants adapted by increasing stride length and reducing variability. This paper provided first evidence for visuomotor adaptations during overground walking with a VR headset, representing an initial investigation for developing new VR methods for early detection and remediation of gait deficits in ecological conditions.

Paper

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@article{martelli2019gait,
  title={Gait adaptations during overground walking and multidirectional oscillations of the visual field in a virtual reality headset},
  author={Martelli, D. and Xia, B. and Prado, A. and Agrawal, S.K.},
  journal={Gait \& Posture},
  volume={67},
  pages={251--256},
  year={2019},
  publisher={Elsevier}
}