Narrowing beam-walking is a clinically feasible approach for assessing balance ability in lower-limb prosthesis users.

ABSTRACT:

Objective

Challenging clinical balance tests are needed to expose balance deficits in lower-limb prost-hesis users. This study examined whether narrowing beam-walking could overcome conceptual and practical limitations identified in fixed-width beam-walking.

Design

Cross-sectional.

Participants

Unilateral lower-limb prosthesis users.

Methods

Participants walked 10 times along a low, narrowing beam. Performance was quantified using the normalized distance walked. Heuristic rules were applied to determine whether the narrowing beam task was "too easy," "too hard," or "appropriately challenging" for each participant. Linear regression and Bland-Altman plots were used to determine whether combinations of the first 5 trials could predict participants' stable beam-wa

SUBMITTER: Sawers A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6171346 | biostudies-literature | 2018 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature