2016 Volume 43 Issue 6 Pages 493-500
Purpose: It has been widely reported that walking speed is related to the lower limb muscle strength in the paretic side of convalescent and chronic stroke patients, but only weakly related to the non-paretic side. However, there is lack of research on acute stroke patients. The purpose of this research was to clarify the relationship between paretic / non-paretic lower limb muscle strength and walking speed in acute stroke patients.
Methods: The subjects were 118 hospitalized stroke patients, who were assessed within the 30 days following stroke onset. The extension muscle strength of the isometric knee joint on the paretic and non-paretic side were evaluated using (1) analysis of variance and multiple comparison of 3 groups based on walking speed; (2) correlation analysis of all patients and of 3 groups based on walking speed, and (3) multiple variable regression with the walking speed as a dependent variable.
Results: Results showed a moderate correlation between strong muscle strength of paretic / non-paretic isometric knee joint extension and fast walking speed. The extension muscle strength of the isometric knee joint on the paretic side was extracted as a significant explanatory variable by multiple variable regression. These results were not found for the non-paretic side.
Conclusion: The findings showed that lower limb muscle strength of the paretic side was related to walking speed in not only convalescent and chronic, but also in acute stroke patients.
