Purpose : To determine whether an advanced rehabilitation therapy combined with conventional rehabilitation therapy consisting of sensorimotor exercises that would be superior to a usual treadmill training in gait ability and fall risk in subacute stroke patients.
Methods : Thirty subjects randomly assigned to either multi-sensorimotor training group (n=19) or treadmill training group (n=18). Both groups first performed conventional physical therapy for 30 min, after which the multi-sensorimotor training group performed multi-sensorimotor training for 30 min, and the treadmill training group performed treadmill gait training for 30 min. Both groups performed the therapeutic interventions 5 days per week for 8 weeks. Gait ability was evaluated using the GAITRite system and Fall risk was measured using the Biodex Balance system before intervention and after 8 weeks.
Results : There were no intergroup differences between demographic and clinical characteristics at baseline (p>.05). Both groups showed a significant improvement in gait ability (p<.05) and Fall risk (p<.05). In particular, the multi-sensorimotor training group showed more significant differences in gait velocity (p=.05), step length (p=.01) and stride length (p=.014) than the treadmill training group.
Conclusion : The multi-sensorimotor training program performed on multiple types of sensory input had beneficial effect on gait ability. A large-scale randomized controlled study is needed to prove the effect of this training.