Gait Perturbations to Improve Balance Post-stroke

Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in Rehabilitation of Greater Montreal

Status: Completed

Conditions: Hemiparesis;Poststroke/CVA

Treatments: Device: Gait training with perturbations; Device: Gait training without perturbation

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT04314830

CRIR-998-0914

Details and patient eligibility

About

Individuals with stroke have balance and gait deficits. Gait training does improve balance and gait abilities, but adding perturbations may have increase these effects. The objective was to compare the effect gait training with and without perturbations on balance and gait abilities in individuals with hemiparesis due to stroke at a chronic stage.

Enrollment: 21 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 18 to 70 years old

Volunteers: No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• able to walk at a comfortable speed less than 1.0 m/s
• have reduced dynamic balance capacities (as evaluated by the mini-BESTest; score below the 95% confidence interval of the mean score of the corresponding age group of normative data)
• with or without a history of fall
• be able to walk on a treadmill, without external support, such as handrails or walking aid, for at least 1 minute

Exclusion criteria

• hemineglect (more than 6 omissions on the bell cancellation test),
• cognitive impairment (Mini-Mental State Examination score under 24/30)
• uncorrected visual deficit or pathologies other than stroke which can affect their gait or balance

Trial design

Primary purpose: Treatment

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Crossover Assignment

Masking: Single Blind

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21 participants in 2 patient groups

Gait training without perturbation

Active Comparator group

Description:

Walking on a treadmill with the same duration as a participants of the experimental arm matched for initial gait speed. Treadmill speed did not change along the training program

Treatment:

Device: Gait training without perturbation

Gait training with perturbations

Experimental group

Description:

Walking on a treadmill with perturbations produced by changes in the speed of one of the belt of the split-belt treadmill during one gait cycle. Changes in treadmill speed were applied on the paretic or non-paretic side, with and increase or a decrease of the speed of the belt in various magnitude. Perturbations were either repeated with the same characteristics or with different characteristics. Outside of perturbations, treadmill speed did not change along the training program.

Treatment:

Device: Gait training with perturbations