Abstract
Study design:
Observational cross-section study.
Objectives:
The objective of our study was to determine if the influence of a community environment would impact on ASIA D spinal cord injured (SCI) gait performance patients. Our main hypothesis is that an outdoor community environment may influence gait speed and endurance on community ambulating patients.
Methods:
Ten-Meter Walking (10MWT) and Six-Minute Walking (6MWT) tests were performed on community ambulating SCI research participants (n=18) in two different environmental conditions: (1) Experimental (indoors Gymnasium) and (2) Natural (community setting). Average gait speed and endurance values were obtained for the two different conditions and analyzed for statistical significance on the nonparametric two-tailed Wilcoxon signed rank test.
Results:
While no difference was observed on the 10MWT we found an improvement on gait performance on the 6 MWT on a community setting.
Conclusions:
Our study showed mixed results on environmental influence on gait speed and endurance on ASIA D patient population. While there is no difference on the 10 MWT, there is an improvement on gait performance on the communitary 6MWT.
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Acknowledgements
Prof Dr Ramòn Leiguarda, MD for his valuable contributions to this publication. FLENI Rehabilitation Institute, Buenos Aires, Argentina.
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Olmos, L., Freixes, O., Gatti, M. et al. Comparison of gait performance on different environmental settings for patients with chronic spinal cord injury. Spinal Cord 46, 331–334 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.sc.3102132
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.sc.3102132
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