Effects of ankle-foot orthoses on mediolateral foot-placement ability during post-stroke gait.

BACKGROUND: Accurate and precise mediolateral foot placement is important for balance during gait, but is impaired post stroke. Mediolateral foot placement may be improved with ankle-foot orthosis use.
OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study was to determine whether an ankle-foot orthosis improves mediolateral foot-placement ability during post-stroke ambulation. STUDY
DESIGN: Crossover trial with randomized order of conditions tested.
METHODS: The accuracy and precision of mediolateral foot placement was quantified while subjects targeted four different randomized step widths. Subjects were tested with and without their regular non-rigid ankle-foot orthosis in two separate visits (order randomized).
RESULTS: While ankle-foot orthosis use corrected foot and ankle alignment (i.e. significantly decreased mid-swing plantar flexion, p = 0.000), effects of ankle-foot orthosis use on hip hiking (p = 0.545), circumduction (p = 0.179), coronal plane hip range of motion (p = 0.06), and mediolateral foot-placement ability (p = 0.537) were not significant.
CONCLUSION: While ankle-foot orthosis-mediated equinovarus correction of the affected foot and ankle was not associated with improved biomechanics of walking (i.e. proximal ipsilateral hip kinematics or mediolateral foot-placement ability), it may affect other aspects of balance that were not tested in this study (e.g. proprioception, cerebellar, vestibular, and cognitive mechanisms). CLINICAL RELEVANCE: Studies that investigate the effect of ankle-foot orthosis on gait can help advance stroke rehabilitation by documenting the specific gait benefits of ankle-foot orthosis use. In this study, we investigated the effect of ankle-foot orthosis use on mediolateral foot-placement ability, an aspect of gait important for maintaining balance. © The International Society for Prosthetics and Orthotics 2014.

RCT Entities:   Population Interventions Outcomes