Effect of Anterioposterior Weight Shifting Training With Visual Biofeedback in Subacute Stroke

Asymmetric gait patterns of stroke is one of the most important functional activities to enable community participation, it is major goal for stroke patients. Reported that the stroke patients had asymmetry at stance time, single stance, double support time, and swing time compared to normal people, and claimed that the most important factor was step length. According to Albert et al., patients with an asymmetric gait pattern have a long double support phase and a healthy side single support phase, and less weight shift to the affected side. Recent studies have shown that visual feedback for weight shift may be helpful to obtain a symmetrical posture after stroke. However, no study has been conducted on the therapeutic effect on gait asymmetry and patterns. We aimed to investigate the effect of Anterioposterior Weight Shifting Training with Visual Biofeedback in subacute post-stroke patients on gait asymmetry and pattern.

40 subacute post-stroke patients with Step Length Asymmetry were enrolled in this study. The subjects were randomly assigned into two groups. The training group received an additional anterioposterior weight shifting training with visual Biofeedback 5 times per week for 4weeks. The control group received the usual gait training. The spatiotemporal and kinematic data were obtained during walking through 3D motion analysis. Functional Ambulation Category, Self-selected walking speed, Maximum safe walking speed, Berg balance Test (BBT), Fugl-Meyer Assessment (FMA), Medical Research Council Score (MRC), Functional Independent Measure-mobility, Timed Up and Go test (TUG) were assessed at pre, during, post- training, and 4week follow-up. Those were compared between two groups by repeated measures ANOVA.