Short-term effects of physiotherapy combining repetitive facilitation exercises and orthotic treatment in chronic post-stroke patients

Abstract

[Purpose] This study investigated the short-term effects of a combination therapy consisting of repetitive facilitative exercises and orthotic treatment. [Subjects and Methods] The subjects were chronic post-stroke patients (n=27; 24 males and 3 females; 59.3 ± 12.4 years old; duration after onset: 35.7 ± 28.9 months) with limited mobility and motor function. Each subject received combination therapy consisting of repetitive facilitative exercises for the hemiplegic lower limb and gait training with an ankle-foot orthosis for 4 weeks. The Fugl-Meyer assessment of the lower extremity, the Stroke Impairment Assessment Set as a measure of motor performance, the Timed Up & Go test, and the 10-m walk test as a measure of functional ambulation were evaluated before and after the combination therapy intervention. [Results] The findings of the Fugl-Meyer assessment, Stroke Impairment Assessment Set, Timed Up & Go test, and 10-m walk test significantly improved after the intervention. Moreover, the results of the 10-m walk test at a fast speed reached the minimal detectible change threshold (0.13 m/s). [Conclusion] Short-term physiotherapy combining repetitive facilitative exercises and orthotic treatment may be more effective than the conventional neurofacilitation therapy, to improve the lower-limb motor performance and functional ambulation of chronic post-stroke patients.

Quality of life after stroke: impact of clinical and sociodemographic factors

“…A recent study evaluated gait training with an ankle-foot orthosis. The authors described improvement in walking speed and balance when the intervention was associated with physiotherapy combining repetitive facilitative exercises 35.…”

Year-Long Use of Ankle-Foot Orthosis–Footwear Combination with Talar Flange Modification in an Adult Poststroke

“…Although Owen 26 has advocated for functional gait training as part of AFO-FC intervention in children, the effect of combining therapy with orthotic intervention is rarely the focus of research in persons poststroke. 27 In conclusion, this case report described year-long use of an AFO-FC augmented with a talar flange to improve gait in an individual with poststroke hemiplegia with unstable subtalar joint. This fills a gap in the literature regarding detailed orthotic management related to triplanar control and highlights the importance of patient-centered goals and physical therapy with the orthosis.…”

“…Therapy with the device was also important for successful orthotic intervention in this case. Although Owen 26 has advocated for functional gait training as part of AFO-FC intervention in children, the effect of combining therapy with orthotic intervention is rarely the focus of research in persons poststroke 27 …”

Contract size changes in the options market: effects on market efficiency and investor behaviour

“…All studies failed in the items which evaluated the adequacy of population representation, and the blinding of patients or therapists. A non-randomized, one-group clinical design (quasiexperimental) was included in 10 papers in which functional tests without an AFO were defined as the control trials without a randomization for the order of tests [23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32]. A randomized, onegroup clinical design (quasi-experimental) was included in 13 papers in which functional tests without an AFO were the control trial with a randomization for the order of tests [33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41][42][43][44][45].…”

“…One study included a non-randomized parallel-group trial in which participants were not assigned randomly to two groups [52]. Seven papers evaluated the immediate effect of an AFO (without adaptation) [27,29,33,36,40,43,49], and other studies assessed the short-term (< 3 months) [24,26,28,30,31,35,37,38,[40][41][42]44,48,50,52] or long-time effects (> 3 months) [23,34,39,46,47,50,51] of an orthosis. Most studies had small sample sizes (4-61 subjects), and a sample size calculation (power) was reported in five studies [36,42,45,46,49].…”