Step Length Asymmetry Predicts Rehabilitation Length in Subacute Post Stroke Patients

Background: During the rehabilitation of individuals post stroke, evaluations are performed in order to discern the patient’s prognosis and optimize the treatment plan. However, these tests do not focus on gait symmetry, which might be a predictor for rehabilitation outcomes. We aimed to correlate gait symmetry measures of subacute post stroke patients with rehabilitation outcome and find the symmetry measure that best predicts the variability of the rehabilitation duration. A secondary aim was to compare these measures between patients with right and left brain lesions. Methods: We recruited 30 subacute post stroke patients (14 with right side lesion). We collected the following measures: National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale (NIHSS), Functional Independence Measure (FIM), the 10 m walk test (10MWT), Functional Ambulation Categories (FAC), spatial-temporal gait measures, and gait symmetry and variability. Results: We found moderate correlations between the step length symmetry and the length of rehabilitation, NIHSS, FIM, FAC and 10MWT. The symmetry index of the step length predicted the length of the rehabilitation period as it explained 32.1% of its variance (p = 0.001). Discussion: We conclude that a simple test of the step length symmetry might be informative in predicting rehabilitation length in subacute post stroke patients.