Effectiveness of body weight shifting training to improve balance & gait of stroke patients

Abstract

Background: Stroke is the major causes of disability that causes abnormal gait pattern, unequal weight distribution, impaired balance function and difficult to shift the weight of the body. Body weight shifting can improve the balance and gait which refers to the ability to shift the body weight symmetrically on a flat surface toward a person's affected side. Aim/Objectives: To find out the effectiveness of body weight shifting training to improve balance and gait among stroke patients. Methodology: The study was single group Quasi experimental (pre-test and post-test) design study. 30 participants were allocated based on inclusion and exclusion criteria from Neurology unit and Stroke Rehabilitation Unit (SRU) of CRP, Savar, Dhaka and they received 12 session of treatment for 4 weeks. The data was collected by semi-structured questionnaire to assess socio-demographic information, balance and gait. The outcome measurement tools were Berg Balance Scale (BBS) and Gait Parameters to evaluate the balance and gait before and after completion of treatment. Results: The findings of the study analyzed by 'Wilcoxon signed-ranked Test' and 'Paired sample t test' using SPSS software version 25.0, Microsoft excel, scientific calculator. The mean age was 49.83 years. 80% was male and 20% was female. 33.3% had ischemic stroke and 66.7% had hemorrhagic stroke. The mean difference of total BBS score was 7.27 which revealed a statistically significant at level of 0.05 that indicates improvement of balance. The step length, stride length, step width, gait speed and cadence of gait parameters reveals significant changes (p<0.05) in improvement of gait. Discussion: Some studies found significant result in improving balance of the experimental group. Andersson and Franzen (2015) obtained that no significant value of gait. Shrestha et al. (2022) found that significant changes of gait after treatment. Conclusion: The study had recognized that the body weight shifting training is clinically effective for improvement on balance and gait of stroke patients. For future, to generalize the result plan to do randomized control trial (RCT) study. Keywords: Stroke, Balance, Berg Balance Scale, Body weight shifting training, Gait, Gait parameters.