Practicing taking steps for balance recovery for stroke survivors
Research type
Research Study
Full title
A comparison of two ways of practicing taking steps for balance recovery on rehabilitation of balance for stroke survivors.
IRAS ID
229279
Contact name
Kristen Hollands
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University of Salford
Duration of Study in the UK
0 years, 5 months, 28 days
Research summary
Persons with stroke are prone to have a higher risk of falls following discharge from the hospital than during hospitalization.(1-17) Studies suggest falls in persons with stroke are more likely to lead to serious injuries, such as fractures and further head injury, which require further hospitalization and limitations in independent community mobility leading to social isolation.(3-5, 8, 9, 11, 15, 17-19) Circumstances of falls in people with stroke indicate one possible reason for falls may be impaired ability to take compensatory protective steps or stepping responses to recover balance after a perturbation.(8) This impairment in stepping responses is related to increased fall rate during inpatient rehabilitation.(20)
Recent studies have shown that practice with stepping responses in response to perturbations can be effective for improving balance in stroke survivors(21) but this method of balance training involved the use of expensive, specialist force platforms which can shift suddenly beneath patients’ feet. Therefore, this study aims to investigate if stepping response ability in persons with stroke can be improved by providing training in response to manual perturbations (Voluntary-Induced Stepping Response or VSR training) which are more readily achieved in clinical settings. Some studies have shown that manual perturbation training can improve muscle activation in stroke survivors but no studies have yet measured the characteristics of stepping response of stroke survivors in response to manual perturbataion training nor compared stepping responses outcomes between manual and moveable force-platform modes of training. To address this aim a 2 parallel arm pilot randomised clinical trial study design will be used, comparing VSR training and DYNSTABLE training on stepping responses in persons with stroke. We will also measure the responses of ten young and older adults to perturbations eliciting stepping responses in order to provide a normative reference frame with which to compare stroke survivors stepping responses ability following training.
REC name
West Midlands - Coventry & Warwickshire Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
17/WM/0368
Date of REC Opinion
24 Oct 2017
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion