Article

Walking on a treadmill with body weight support (BWS) may require
familiarisation. Patients post-stroke fatigue easily and the time needed to reach
stable walking is important. However, even if body weight supported treadmill
training (BWSTT) is commonly used in gait rehabilitation for patients
post-stroke, it is not known how much time that is needed before stable walking
is reached in this population. The objective of this study therefore, was to
investigate if patients post-stroke manage to stabilise walking patterns during a
5-min familiarisation-trial on the treadmill with BWS. METHOD: 35 patients
post-stroke walked on a treadmill at preferred speed and with 20 percent BWS
during a 5-min familiarisation-period. A body-worn sensor assessed trunk
acceleration. Intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) was used for pairwise
comparisons of successive 30s intervals during familiarisation, and one-way
repeated-measures analysis of variance was used to investigate if there were
linear trends between intervals. RESULTS: Mean ICCs across all variables
stabilised above 0.90 after 3 min. Across intervals, walk ratio, cadence and step
length obtained mean ICCs that were high, while interstride trunk regularity and
trunk asymmetry obtained lower ICCs. However, except for mediolateral trunk
acceleration, there was no linear trend after the first 3 min indicating that
differences between intervals during the last 2 min were random. DISCUSSION AND
CONCLUSION: This was the first study investigating familiarisation to BWSTT for
patients post-stroke. Findings revealed that most of the familiarisation occurred
within the first 3 min of walking, and therefore relatively stable walking could
be achieved within a 5-min walking trial on the treadmill with BWS.
CI - Copyright (c) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Langue : ANGLAIS