Award Date

5-15-2025

Degree Type

Doctoral Project

Degree Name

Doctor of Physical Therapy (DPT)

Department

Physical Therapy

First Committee Member

Szu-Ping Lee

Second Committee Member

Daniel Young

Third Committee Member

Kai-Yu Ho

Number of Pages

44

Abstract

Purpose: Lower limb amputation (LLA) is a devastating condition that is becoming more prevalent in the United States. We examined the effects of peer-based action observation learning on the brain activation and the eyetracking pattern in individuals with LLA.

Methods: Fourteen individuals with LLA (51.9±12.6 years, 4 females, 9 with transfemoral amputations) were asked to learn a balance task through observing the movements demonstrated by individuals with LLA or persons with intact limbs. Electroencephalogram (EEG) signals, visual attention time, and peak saccade velocity were recorded when participants watched the demonstration videos. Power spectral density (PSD) was used to analyze the power distribution across different frequencies (alpha: 8–13 Hz; beta: 13–30 Hz) in EEG signals over three brain regions of interests (ROI: frontal, central, and posterior) in the peer and non-peer conditions. Differences of EEG power in three ROIs between two conditions over time were determined by three-way Analysis of variance (ANOVA) with repeated measures.

Results: Alpha power was significantly lower in posterior area at the duration of 20 to 30 s (p=0.007) and in central area at the duration of 10 to 20 s (p=0.045) during watching peer demonstration videos. This indicated that participants with LLA had higher cortical activation over sensorimotor and visual-related area while watching peer demonstrations. Participants exhibited lower peak saccade velocity during watching peer demonstrations (216.51 ± 62.19 °/s, p=0.006) compared to watching non-peer videos (264.43 ± 83.04 °/s). This implied that participants were more attentive in the peer-based learning condition. There was no significant difference in other cortical rhythms and visual attention time between conditions.

Conclusions: Peer-based learning induced higher cortical activation and elevated attention level in individuals with LLA: this may be related to better motor learning outcomes. Future research should focus on how peer-based post-amputation physical therapy may promote motor skills learning in people with LLA.

Keywords

Physical Therapy; amputee; lower-limb amputee; lower-limb amputation; individuals with lower-limb amputation; peer-based learning; peer-based observation; balance; fall recovery; EEG; brain activation; eye tracking; attention; visual attentional time; peak saccade velocity; power spectral density; alpha frequency band; beta frequency band; motor skills; motor learning; rehabilitation; post-amputation rehabilitation

Disciplines

Physical Therapy

File Format

pdf

File Size

1570 KB

Degree Grantor

University of Nevada, Las Vegas

Language

English

Rights

IN COPYRIGHT. For more information about this rights statement, please visit http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

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