Effects of different dual-task trainings on gait and cortical activation during obstacle crossing in stroke patients: a randomized controlled trial.

Objective: After stroke, patients often exhibit abnormal gait and cortical activation patterns during obstacle crossing, which heightens their risk of falls. This study aimed to examine the effects of Motor dual-task gait training (MDTG) and cognitive dual-task gait training (CDTG) on gait and cortical activation during obstacle crossing in stroke patients, to clarify their differential effects and underlying neural mechanisms. Methods: 35 stroke patients were recruited and randomly assigned to either the MDTG group ( Results: Following training, both groups demonstrated significant improvements in stride length, step length, step width, gait speed, toe-obstacle clearance of the leading and trailing limb, toe-obstacle distance of the trailing limb, anteroposterior and mediolateral COM displacement, mediolateral COM mean velocity, anteroposterior COM-COP distance, hip flexion angle of the leading limb, knee flexion angle of the trailing limb, and peak hip flexion moment of the trailing limb ( Conclusion: A 4-week program of either MDTG or CDTG effectively improved postural stability, enhanced control of the swing limb and COM, and increased efficiency in cortical resource utilization during obstacle crossing in stroke patients. However, no differences in these effects were observed between the two training modalities. Clinical Trial Registration: https://www.chictr.org.cn/showproj.html?proj=200755, identifier ChiCTR2300077304.