Article

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the feasibility of fixed-width beam walking for assessing
balance in lower limb prosthesis users. SUBJECTS: Lower limb prosthesis users.
METHODS: Participants
attempted 10 walking trials on three fixed-width beams (18.6, 8.60, and 4.01
wide; 5.5 m long; 3.8 cm high). MAIN MEASURES: Beam-walking performance was
quantified using the distance walked to balance failure. Heuristic rules applied
to each participant's beam-walking distance to classify each beam as "too easy,"
"too hard," or "appropriately challenging" and determine whether any single beam
provided an appropriate challenge to all participants. The number of trials
needed to achieve stable beam-walking performance was quantified for
appropriately challenging beams by identifying the last inflection point in the
slope of each participant's trial-by-trial cumulative performance record.
RESULTS: In all, 30 unilateral lower limb prosthesis users participated in the
study. Each of the fixed-width beams was either too easy or too hard for at least
33% of the sample. Thus, no single beam was appropriately challenging for all
participants. Beam-walking performance was stable by trial 8 for all participants
and by trial 6 for 90% of participants. There was no significant difference in
the number of trials needed to achieve stable performance among beams ( P = 0.74). CONCLUSION: Results suggest that a clinical beam-walking test would
require multiple beams to evaluate balance across a range of lower limb
prosthesis users, emphasizing the need for adaptive or progressively challenging
balance tests. While the administrative burden of a multiple-beam balance test
may limit clinical feasibility, alternatives to ease this administrative burden
are proposed.

Langue : ANGLAIS