People with chronic stroke (PwCS) are susceptible to mediolateral losses of balance while walking, possibly due in part to inaccurate control of mediolateral paretic foot placement. We hypothesized that mediolateral foot placement errors when stepping to stationary or shifting visual targets would be larger for paretic steps than for steps taken by neurologically-intact individuals, hereby referred to as controls. Secondarily, we hypothesized that paretic foot placement errors would be correlated with previously identified deficits in isolated paretic hip abduction accuracy. 34 PwCS and 12 controls walked overground on an instrumented mat used to quantify foot placement location relative to parallel lines separated by various widths (10, 20, 30 cm). With stationary step width targets, foot placement errors were larger for paretic steps than for either non-paretic or control steps, most notably for the narrowest prescribed step width (mean absolute errors of 3.9, 2.3, and 1.9 cm, respectively). However, no differences in foot placement accuracy were observed immediately following visual target shifts, as all groups required multiple steps to achieve the new prescribed step width. Paretic hip abduction accuracy was moderately correlated with mediolateral foot placement accuracy when stepping to stationary targets (r = 0.49), but not shifting targets (r = 0.16). The present results suggest that a reduced ability to accurately abduct the paretic leg contributes to inaccurate paretic foot placement. However, the need to ensure mediolateral walking balance through mechanically-appropriate foot placement may often override the prescribed goal of stepping to visual targets, a concern of particular importance for narrow steps.

患有慢性中风 (PwCS) 的人在行走时容易出现内侧失去平衡，部分原因可能是对内侧麻痹足部位置的控制不准确。我们假设，当迈向静止或移动视觉目标时，内侧足部放置错误对于麻痹性步骤比神经完整个体所采取的步骤更大，特此称为对照。其次，我们假设麻痹性足部放置错误与先前发现的孤立性麻痹性髋关节外展准确性缺陷相关。34 名 PwCS 和 12 名对照者在仪器垫上走在地面上，该垫子用于量化相对于以不同宽度（10、20、30 厘米）分隔的平行线的脚放置位置。对于固定步长目标，麻痹步的脚放置误差比非麻痹步或控制步大，最明显的是最窄的规定步宽（平均绝对误差分别为 3.9、2.3 和 1.9 厘米）。然而，在视觉目标转移后立即观察到脚放置准确性没有差异，因为所有组都需要多个步骤才能达到新规定的步宽。当迈向固定目标时，麻痹髋关节外展的准确性与足部内侧放置的准确性适度相关 (r = 0.49)，但与移动目标无关 (r = 0.16)。目前的结果表明，准确外展麻痹腿的能力降低会导致麻痹足放置不准确。然而，