Prudence Plummer-D'Amato, an assistant professor of physical therapy, was awarded a grant to develop a new approach to teach stroke victims to walk again.

Pru­dence Plummer-D’Amato, an assis­tant pro­fessor of phys­ical therapy at North­eastern Uni­ver­sity, was recently awarded a grant from the Amer­ican Heart Asso­ci­a­tion to develop a new approach for teaching stroke vic­tims how to walk. The four-​​year project will require patients to com­plete chal­lenging mental tasks while under­going phys­ical therapy. She will con­duct the research at the New Eng­land Reha­bil­i­ta­tion Hos­pital in Woburn, Mass., with North­eastern Pro­fessor of Biology Dagmar Sternad, a neu­ro­science researcher with appoint­ments in elec­trical and com­puter engi­neering and physics. 

What is the major problem being addressed in this study?

Our research focuses on deter­mining the best reha­bil­i­ta­tion activ­i­ties for stroke vic­tims in order to max­i­mize their ability to walk again. After a stroke, shifting atten­tion to having a con­ver­sa­tion or reading street signs while walking can be dif­fi­cult, which may limit a person’s capa­bility to par­tic­i­pate in social activ­i­ties out­side of the home.

What spe­cific ques­tions are you asking and how will you attempt to answer them?

We will com­pare two types of walking reha­bil­i­ta­tion pro­grams. One is a tra­di­tional phys­ical therapy pro­gram and the other is an inter­ven­tion pro­gram that includes walking and com­pleting other tasks at the same time, such as counting or responding to words. The goal is to find out which one improves walking under attention-​​demanding con­di­tions. We will also deter­mine whether the amount of walking people do in their daily lives changes as a result of the treatment.

Beyond treating indi­vidual stroke vic­tims, what are the overall goals of your study? Where does it fit into the larger scope of rehabilitation?

Our goal is to iden­tify and develop optimal reha­bil­i­ta­tion treat­ments that will improve func­tional mobility and quality of life in community-​​dwelling indi­vid­uals who suffer a stroke. Through this research, we will achieve greater under­standing of how reha­bil­i­ta­tion impacts recovery of real-​​world walking, thereby allowing ther­a­pists to develop better inter­ven­tion strate­gies that will min­i­mize a stroke victim’s disability.