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Affiliation
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Clinical Neurorehabilitation Section, Department of Physical & Rehabilitation Medicine,School of Medicine, InHa University, Korea - drjoakl@gmail.com. |
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Abstract
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BACKGROUND: Few guidelines are available to assist clinicians with assessment of whether a patient is a household or community walker.
AIM: To assess the Korean Berg balance scale (K--BBS) and gait velocity cut--off points of a household walker versus a community walker and evaluate which combinations of the three scales (K--BBS, upright motor control test (UMCT), and gait velocity) best assessed walking ability.
DESIGN: Cross--sectional study SETTING: Outpatient POPULATION: A total of 124 stroke patients with walking difficulty METHODS: Participants were classified into one of six walking classifications (three household walkers and three community walkers) and K--BBS, UMCT, and gait velocity were evaluated. The optimal cut--off scores for walking classification were determined based on received operator characteristic (ROC) analyses.
RESULTS: The cut--off value of K--BBS for dividing the household walker versus the community walker was 42 points. The cut--off value of gait velocity was 48 m/s for the community walker. The area under the ROC curve of the combined K--BBS and gait velocity values was larger than that of each individual scale and those of the other combined scales.
CONCLUSION: The results suggest that K--BBS, gait velocity, and UMCT are useful instruments for classifying household ambulation and community ambulation. The authors recommend K--BBS as single scale and K--BBS and gait velocity as combined scales for evaluating community ambulation in stroke patients. CLINICAL REHABILITATION IMPACT: In this report, we have some clinical implication.
Language: en |