Effect of body-weight support with gait training on treadmill and over-ground on the locomotion of acute stroke subjects

Abstract

Stroke is a sudden focal neurological deficit resulting from ischemic or hemorrhagic lesions in the brain. It is the third leading cause of adult disability in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia with crude annual incidence of stroke subjects 30 per 100,000 population. Loss and impairment of walking ability is one of the major devastating outcomes of poststroke hemiplegia. While thirty percent of stroke patient die during the acute phase, more than 50% of patients with stroke who survive the acute phase are unable to walk and require a period of rehabilitation to achieve a functional level of ambulation. Thus, the restoration and improvement of walking ability in these subjects constitutes a major treatment goal of physical therapy. A new approach to the re-training of gait after stroke is the use of treadmill training with partial body weight support.