Fall experience and dual-task during gait performance for community-dwelling persons with stroke

Objective: The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of fall experience and task complexity on gait performance in community-dwelling persons with chronic hemiparetic stroke. Design: Cross-sectional study. Methods: Thirty-three persons who had a history of stroke participated in this study. The participants included 18 persons (aged mean 54.0, mean score of 24.6 points on the Montreal Cognitive Assessment, MoCA) with fall experience (faller group) and 15 persons (aged mean 53.7, mean score of 24.7 points on the MoCA) without fall experience (non-faller group) in the previous six months. This study measured balance and gait performance at two different conditions (with/without 70% of water filled in a 200 cc cup). The participants were clinically assessed using the 10-meter walk test (10MWT), 6-minute walk test (6MWT), Berg Balance scale (BBS), Dynamic Gait Index (DGI), and Timed Up-and-Go (TUG) test. Results: After analyzation, persons in the faller group performed significantly better on the 10MWT, 6MWT, BBS, DGI, and the TUG test in the no-cup-carrying condition than those in the cup-carrying condition (p<0.05). The persons in the non-faller group also performed significantly better in all outcome measures with the no-cup-carrying condition than those in the cup-carrying condition (p<0.05). However, there was no interaction between fall experience and task complexity in the two groups. Conclusions: Our results showed that balance and gait performance depended on fall experience and task complexity but fall experience did not interact with task complexity. Clinicians should consider fall prevention and task complexity during therapeutic approaches in persons with hemiparetic stroke.