Papers
2
Total Citations
63
H-Index
2
About
Carol L. Richards is a leading figure in rehabilitation science, with a focused expertise in post-stroke gait rehabilitation and neuromuscular control. Her major contributions center on understanding and enhancing ankle dorsiflexor activation—specifically the Tibialis anterior (TA) muscle—during walking. Richards pioneered the use of torque perturbations applied during the swing phase of gait to provoke targeted, task-specific increases in TA activation. Her 2011 paper, “Walking while resisting a perturbation,” demonstrated that non-disabled individuals could be trained to increase dorsiflexor activity by walking against a plantarflexion resistance, a finding with direct implications for rehabilitating foot drop in stroke survivors. This work was further validated in her 2014 case series, which showed that persons post-stroke could similarly modify ankle dorsiflexor activation when exposed to the same perturbation. Though her citation counts (31 and 32) are modest, their impact is profound within the niche of neurorehabilitation, offering a novel, low-cost, and functionally relevant intervention. Richards’ research bridges biomechanics and clinical practice, providing a foundation for developing perturbation-based therapies that retrain the nervous system to overcome gait impairments. Her work remains a cornerstone for clinicians and researchers seeking to restore walking function after neurological injury.
Research Focus
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Top Papers
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