Treadmill Handrail-Use Increases the Anteroposterior Margin of Stability in Individuals’ Post-Stroke

Abstract

Treadmills are important rehabilitation tools used with or without handrails. The handrails could be used to attain balance, prevent falls, and improve the walking biomechanics of stroke survivors, but it is yet unclear how the treadmill handrails impact their stability margins. Here, we investigated how 3 treadmill handrail-use conditions (no-hold, self-selected support, and light touch) impact stroke survivors’ margins of stability (MoS). The anteroposterior MoS significantly increased for both legs with self-selected support while the mediolateral MoS of the unaffected leg decreased significantly when the participants walked with self-selected support in comparison to no-hold in both cases. We concluded that the contextual use of the handrail should guide its prescription for fall prevention or balance training in rehabilitation programs.

Keywords:

• Treadmill handrail support
• margin of stability
• balance and mechanical gait stability
• stroke rehabilitation

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This study was funded from grants by the National Institutes of Health [R15 HD094194 and P20 GM109090].