Article

Post-stroke gait impairments are common and result in slowed walking speeds and
decreased community participation post-stroke. Treadmill training has recently
emerged as an effective gait rehabilitation intervention. Furthermore, kinematic
and kinetic data collected during treadmill walking are commonly used for
assessing gait performance. The minimal detectable change (MDC) for gait
variables provides a useful index to determine whether the magnitude of change in
gait produced after an intervention is greater than the amount of change
attributable to day-to-day variability in gait or test-retest measurement errors.
The MDC values for kinematic, ground reaction force (GRF), spatial, and temporal
variables collected during treadmill walking post-stroke have not been previously
reported. The objective of this study was, therefore, to compute MDCs for
post-stroke gait kinematics, GRF indices, temporal, and spatial measures during
treadmill walking. Nineteen individuals with chronic post-stroke hemiparesis (12
males; age=47-75 years; 72.6+/-63.4 months since stroke) participated in 2
testing sessions separated by 20.7+/-26.8 days. Our results showed that
test-retest reliability was excellent for all gait variables tested (intraclass
correlation coefficients=0.799-0.986). MDCs were reported for hip, knee, and
ankle joint angles (range 3.8 degrees for trailing limb angles to 11.5 degrees
for hip extension), peak anterior GRF (2.85% body weight), mean vertical GRF
(4.65% body weight), all temporal variables (range 3.2-4.2% gait cycle), and
paretic step length (6.7 cm). These MDCs provide a useful reference to help
interpret the magnitudes of changes in post-stroke gait variables.
CI - Copyright (c) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Langue : ANGLAIS