ORIGINAL ARTICLES   Free access

Europa Medicophysica 1998 March;34(1):5-9

Copyright © 1998 EDIZIONI MINERVA MEDICA

language: English

Balance recovery and relationship with ambulation distance in recent hemiparetic adults

Isakov E. ¹, Mendelevich I. ¹, Ring H. ², Mizrahi J. ³

¹ Kinesiology Laboratory, Loewenstein Rehabilitation Hospital, Tel Aviv University Medical School, Raanana, Israel; ² Department of Neurologic Rehabilitation, Loewenstein Rehabilitation Hospital, Tel Aviv University Medical School, Raanana, Israel; ³ Department of Biomedical Engineering and the Julius Silver Institute of Biomedical Engineering, Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa, Israel

BACKGROUND: The ­aims of ­this ­study ­were to doc­u­ment the recov­ery pro­cess of stand­ing bal­ance in ­stroke ­patients and to estab­lish wheth­er ambu­la­tion dis­tance (dichot­om­ised as 200 m or ­less) cor­re­lat­ed ­with the lev­el of stand­ing bal­ance.
METHODS: Ground reac­tion forc­es dur­ing stand­ing ­with ­eyes ­open and ­closed ­were meas­ured ny ­means of two ­force-­plates, for ­each leg sep­ar­ate­ly, 39 and 98 ­days ­after the ­onset of ­stroke. Ambulation dis­tance was eval­u­at­ed ­during the sec­ond stand­ing ­test.
RESULTS: During stand­ing ­with ­eyes ­open and ­closed ­there was a non­sig­nif­i­cant ­decrease in the ­mean val­ues of ante­ro­pos­ter­i­or and medio­lat­er­al forc­es meas­ured in ­both ­limbs in the sec­ond ­test. Changes in ­between-leg dif­fer­enc­es in ­both ­tests ­were ­also non­sig­nif­i­cant. In the ­whole sam­ple, the ­total ­sway activ­ity ­decreased sig­nif­i­cant­ly (p=0.022) in the sec­ond ­test ­only ­when stand­ing ­with ­eyes ­open. At the end of reha­bil­i­ta­tion, non­sig­nif­i­cant chang­es ­were ­observed ­between the val­ues of ­total ­sway activ­ity, ­both in ­those sub­jects who ­were ­able to ­walk ­over 200 m, and in ­those who ­were not.
CONCLUSIONS: Although the hem­i­pa­ret­ics who ­were ­able to ­walk dis­tanc­es of ­over 200 m ­swayed ­less ­whilst stand­ing, in the sec­ond ­test the cor­re­la­tion ­between ambu­la­tion dis­tance and stand­ing bal­ance did not ­reach sta­tis­ti­cal sig­nif­i­cance. Thus, stand­ing bal­ance ­appears to be a ­poor pre­dic­tor of ambu­la­tion dis­tance in hem­i­pa­ret­ic ­patients.