Relationships between frontal-plane angular momentum and clinical balance measures during post-stroke hemiparetic walking

•We measured dynamic balance based on angular momentum.•Measures were made in persons post-stroke and control subjects.•The measures were larger in persons after stroke.•The measure differentiated those with poor scores on clinical measures.

Stroke has significant impact on dynamic balance during locomotion, with a 73% incidence rate for falls post-stroke. Current clinical assessments often rely on tasks and/or questionnaires that relate to the statistical probability of falls and provide little insight into the mechanisms that impair dynamic balance. Current quantitative measures that assess medial-lateral balance performance do not consider the angular motion of the body, which can be particularly impaired after stroke. Current control methods in bipedal robotics rely on the regulation of angular momentum (H) to maintain dynamic balance during locomotion. This study tests whether frontal-plane H is significantly correlated to clinical balance tests that could be used to provide a detailed assessment of medial-lateral balance impairments in hemiparetic gait. H was measured in post-stroke (n = 48) and control (n = 20) subjects. Post-stroke there were significant negative relationships between the change in frontal-plane H during paretic single-leg stance and two clinical tests: the Dynamic Gait Index (DGI) (r = −0.57, p < 0.001) and the Berg Balance Scale (BBS) (r = −0.54, p < 0.001). Control subjects showed timely regulation of frontal-plane H during the first half of single-leg stance, with the level of regulation depending on the initial magnitude. In contrast, the post-stroke subjects who made poorer adjustments to frontal-plane H during initial paretic leg single stance exhibited lower DGI and BBS scores (r = 0.45, p = 0.003). We conclude that H is a promising balance indicator during steady-state hemiparetic walking and that paretic single-leg stance is a period with higher instability for stroke patients.