The biomechanical assessment of balance and gait for stroke patients
Research type
Research Study
Full title
The biomechanical assessment of balance and gait for stroke patients and the implications in the diagnosis and rehabilitation.
IRAS ID
234318
Contact name
Weijie Wang
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University of Dundee
Duration of Study in the UK
years, months, days
Research summary
Stroke is divided into two main types’ ischemic stroke that occurs due to blocked blood vessels in the brain and haemorrhagic stroke that is due to bleeding in the brain. Ischemic stroke accounts for 85% of all stroke patients and 15% of them are haemorrhagic stroke (Party, 2012). The prevalence of stroke will increase by 2030 from 16.6 million as shown by the current epidemiological data to 77 million worldwide (Guzik, 2016) and is more common in middle-aged and elderly people. Impairment of walking and experience of falls within a year are the most common features of patients with stroke (Lin, 1980; Vistamehr, 2016), which will influence the quality of life after the onset of stroke. Studies by Lin, (1980) and Vistameh, (2016) reported that patients with stroke have different balance and gait patterns compared to healthy people. The characteristics of gait after stroke are slow gait speed, poor endurance (Lamontagne, 2007), reduced cadence, decreased stride length, small joint angular excursions, and increased mechanical energetic cost (Chen, 2005). Post stroke, approximately 73% of patients complain of falling within the first few months of returning home after rehabilitation (Guzik, 2016).
The diagnosis of transient ischaemic attack and minor stroke can be difficult particularly if there are atypical symptoms and/or imaging doesn’t show convincing evidence of an infarct. Advanced techniques of motion analysis have been routinely used in the clinical assessment of cerebral palsy. However, so far, little research has been done on the direct diagnosis of stroke patients using motion analysis. This study aims to investigate whether patients with TIA or minor stroke have different balance and gait from healthy people and examine whether motion analysis could be used as a tool in the prediction and diagnosis of stroke and which biomechanical parameters could be used to predict and diagnose potential patients who are at high risk of further stroke. Moreover, this study aims to create a standard method and scoring system for the assessment and diagnosis of minor stroke or TIA based upon the analysis of outcomes, allowing clinicians to have more evidence to advise secondary prevention.
To achieve this aim, this study requires to collect the data from two groups, the healthy volunteers group and a group of stroke patients, analysing their balance and gait, and identifying which biomechanical parameters differ between the patients and healthy people. It is hypothesised that some of the parameters could be useful for the diagnosis of early stroke.REC name
London - City & East Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
18/LO/0436
Date of REC Opinion
14 Mar 2018
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion