The Effects of Plastic Ankle-foot Orthosis on Elderly Stroke Patients

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: Retraining elderly patients with hemiparesis to walk is a major goal of any stroke rehabilitation program. In particular, an plastic ankle-foot orthosis (AFO) is used to correct a spastic drop foot or equinus foot, which are both commonly seen in spastic stroke related hemiparesis and hemiplegia. This study was performed to investigate the gait pattern with or without plastic AFO in elderly stroke patients. METHOD: The subjects of this study were 20 elderly ambulatory hemiplegic patients. We measured time to walk 10 meters and Berg balance scale (BBS) with or without plastic AFO at the time of admission, 4th week and 12th week. RESULTS: Time to walk and BBS of the stroke patients with plastic AFO significantly improved on transfer and 4 weeks later. But 12 weeks later, time to walk and BBS with plastic AFO did not improve. CONCLUSION: The plastic AFO is helpful for the elderly sroke patients to improve walking speed and BBS in early period of in-patient rehabilitation management.