A method to differentiate the causes of stiff-knee gait (skg) in stroke patients with hemiplegia

SKG is frequent in patients with hemiplegia due to stroke. The lack of knee flexion lead to the use of compensatory mechanisms at the hip and the pelvis and determines a huge increase in the energetic cost of gait [1]. In the literature, SKG has been mainly associated to an overactivity of the quadriceps muscles, while more recently it has been also related to the limited knee flexion velocity in pre-swing due to the lack of push-off [2,3]. In this study, we propose a method to separate, among the causes of SKG, the lack of push-off from the presence of braking mechanisms due to the stretch-induced overactivity of the thigh muscles.