{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,1,16]],"date-time":"2026-01-16T10:43:28Z","timestamp":1768560208021,"version":"3.49.0"},"reference-count":25,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"11","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2025,5,29]],"date-time":"2025-05-29T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1748476800000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"DOI":"10.13039\/100000001","name":"NSF Waterman Award Grant","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","award":["2229575"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["2229575"]}],"id":[{"id":"10.13039\/100000001","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"publisher"}]},{"DOI":"10.13039\/100000001","name":"NSF Waterman Award Grant","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","award":["1R25AG067896"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["1R25AG067896"]}],"id":[{"id":"10.13039\/100000001","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"publisher"}]},{"name":"NIH NIA MSTEM","award":["2229575"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["2229575"]}]},{"name":"NIH NIA MSTEM","award":["1R25AG067896"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["1R25AG067896"]}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Applied Sciences"],"abstract":"<jats:p>In the aging population, imbalance leading to falls is of critical concern; thus, it is imperative to determine and quantify neuromuscular changes because of rehabilitative balance training. (1) Background: Previous studies that have examined changes in balance due to rehabilitative training placed a focus on clinical measures (i.e., behavioral, kinetic, and kinematic outputs); however, irregularities due to abnormalities of underlying neural origin were unrevealed by the aforementioned measures. (2) Methods: Examining muscle activity was used to determine strategies pre- and post-six weeks of balance training in twenty-three healthy older adults (69.5 \u00b1 5.7 years old) and five survivors of stroke (66.4 \u00b1 9.48 years old). Surface electromyographic (sEMG) signals were recorded from eight of the lower limb muscles while participants performed forward walking (FW), forward tandem walking (FT-W), backward walking (BW), and backward tandem walking (BT-W) tasks. The sEMG data were then conditioned and muscle synergies were extracted using non-negative matrix factorization (NNMF). (3) Results: It was observed that muscle synergies and activation patterns changed for pre- versus post-balance training in older adults (i.e., healthy individuals and those who had suffered from stroke). (4) Conclusions: From our findings, it was indicative that muscle activation and muscle synergies could be used to quantify and inform rehabilitative balance training in older adults.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/app15116151","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2025,5,30]],"date-time":"2025-05-30T08:07:58Z","timestamp":1748592478000},"page":"6151","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":1,"title":["Investigating Muscle Activation Patterns and Muscle Synergies Pre- and Post-Balance Training in Older Adults"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"15","author":[{"given":"J\u2019niya","family":"Butler","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Center for Biomechanical & Rehabilitation Engineering, School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, University of the District of Columbia, 4200 Connecticut Ave. NW, Washington, DC 20008, USA"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Ambika","family":"Bhatta","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Center for Biomechanical & Rehabilitation Engineering, School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, University of the District of Columbia, 4200 Connecticut Ave. NW, Washington, DC 20008, USA"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Nicole","family":"Arnold","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Center for Biomechanical & Rehabilitation Engineering, School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, University of the District of Columbia, 4200 Connecticut Ave. NW, Washington, DC 20008, USA"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Younes","family":"El Hakour","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Center for Biomechanical & Rehabilitation Engineering, School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, University of the District of Columbia, 4200 Connecticut Ave. NW, Washington, DC 20008, USA"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Lara A.","family":"Thompson","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Center for Biomechanical & Rehabilitation Engineering, School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, University of the District of Columbia, 4200 Connecticut Ave. NW, Washington, DC 20008, USA"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2025,5,29]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Dussault-Picard, C., Havashinezhadian, S., Turpin, N.A., Moissenet, F., Turcot, K., and Cherni, Y. 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