Levels of Community Ambulation Ability in Patients with Stroke Who Live in a Rural Area

Background: Community ambulation is essential for patients with stroke. Apart from treatments, an assessment with a quantitative target criterion is also important for patients to clearly demonstrate their functional alteration and determine how close they are to their goal, as well as for therapists to assess the effectiveness of the treatments. The existing quantitative target criteria for community ambulation were all derived from participants in a developed country and ability was assessed using a single-task test. To explore cutoff scores of the single-task and dual-task 10-meter walk test (10MWT) in ambulatory patients with stroke from rural areas of a developing country.
Methods: Ninety-five participants with chronic stroke were interviewed concerning their community ambulation ability, and assessed for their walking ability using the single- and dual-task 10MWT.
Results: A walking speed of at least 0.47 m/s assessed using the single-task 10MWT, and at least 0.30 m/s assessed using the dual-task 10MWT, could determine the community ambulation ability of the participants.
Conclusion: Distinct contexts and anthropometric characteristics required different target criteria for community walking. Thus, when establishing a target value for community ambulation, it needs to be specific to the demographics and geographical locations of the patients.

Keywords
cerebrovascular accident; community participation; physical therapy; walking; rehabilitation