Deans' stroke musings: Use of Accelerometer-Based Feedback of Walking Activity for Appraising Progress With Walking-Related Goals in Inpatient Stroke Rehabilitation

Changing stroke rehab and research worldwide now.Time is Brain! trillions and trillions of neurons that DIE each day because there are NO effective hyperacute therapies besides tPA(only 12% effective). I have 523 posts on hyperacute therapy, enough for researchers to spend decades proving them out. These are my personal ideas and blog on stroke rehabilitation and stroke research. Do not attempt any of these without checking with your medical provider. Unless you join me in agitating, when you need these therapies they won't be there.

What this blog is for:

My blog is not to help survivors recover, it is to have the 10 million yearly stroke survivors light fires underneath their doctors, stroke hospitals and stroke researchers to get stroke solved. 100% recovery. The stroke medical world is completely failing at that goal, they don't even have it as a goal. Shortly after getting out of the hospital and getting NO information on the process or protocols of stroke rehabilitation and recovery I started searching on the internet and found that no other survivor received useful information. This is an attempt to cover all stroke rehabilitation information that should be readily available to survivors so they can talk with informed knowledge to their medical staff. It lays out what needs to be done to get stroke survivors closer to 100% recovery. It's quite disgusting that this information is not available from every stroke association and doctors group.

Thursday, September 24, 2015

Use of Accelerometer-Based Feedback of Walking Activity for Appraising Progress With Walking-Related Goals in Inpatient Stroke Rehabilitation

These researchers need to go back to the drawing board and figure out what intervention will make walking better.
http://nnr.sagepub.com/content/29/9/847?etoc

A Randomized Controlled Trial

¹Toronto Rehabilitation Institute—University Health Network, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
²Heart and Stroke Foundation Canadian Partnership for Stroke Recovery, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
³University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
⁴Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
⁵University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada

Avril Mansfield, Toronto Rehabilitation Institute, Room 11-117, 550 University Ave, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5G 2A2. Email: Avril.Mansfield@uhn.ca

Abstract

Background. Regaining independent ambulation is important to those with stroke. Increased walking practice during “down time” in rehabilitation could improve walking function for individuals with stroke.

Objective. To determine the effect of providing physiotherapists with accelerometer-based feedback on patient activity and walking-related goals during inpatient stroke rehabilitation.

Methods. Participants with stroke wore accelerometers around both ankles every weekday during inpatient rehabilitation. Participants were randomly assigned to receive daily feedback about walking activity via their physiotherapists (n = 29) or to receive no feedback (n = 28). Changes in measures of daily walking (walking time, number of steps, average cadence, longest bout duration, and number of “long” walking bouts) and changes in gait control and function assessed in-laboratory were compared between groups.

Results. There was no significant increase in walking time, number of steps, longest bout duration, or number of long walking bouts for the feedback group compared with the control group (P values > .20). However, individuals who received feedback significantly increased cadence of daily walking more than the control group (P = .013). From the in-laboratory gait assessment, individuals who received feedback had a greater increase in walking speed and decrease in step time variability than the control group (P values < .030).

Conclusion. Feedback did not increase the amount of walking completed by individuals with stroke. However, there was a significant increase in cadence, indicating that intensity of daily walking was greater for those who received feedback than the control group. Additionally, more intense daily walking activity appeared to translate to greater improvements in walking speed.