Article

Challenging clinical balance tests are needed to expose balance
deficits in lower-limb prost-hesis users. This study examined whether narrowing
beam-walking could overcome conceptual and practical limitations identified in
fixed-width beam-walking. PARTICIPANTS: Unilateral
lower-limb prosthesis users. METHODS: Participants walked 10 times along a low,
narrowing beam. Performance was quantified using the normalized distance walked.
Heuristic rules were applied to determine whether the narrowing beam task was
"too easy," "too hard," or "appropriately challenging" for each participant.
Linear regression and Bland-Altman plots were used to determine whether
combinations of the first 5 trials could predict participants' stable
beam-walking performance. RESULTS: Forty unilateral lower-limb prosthesis users
participated. Narrowing beam-walking was appropriately challenging for 98% of
participants. Performance stabilized for 93% of participants within 5 trials,
while 62% were stable across all trials. The mean of trials 3-5 accurately
predicted stable performance. CONCLUSION: A clinical narrowing beam-walking test
is likely to challenge a range of lower-limb prosthesis users, have minimal
administrative burden, and exhibit no floor or ceiling effects. Narrowing
beam-walking is therefore a clinically viable method to evaluate lower-limb
prosthesis users' balance ability, but requires psychometric testing before it is
used to assess fall risk.

Langue : ANGLAIS