Étude pilote de l’effet d’un entraînement utilisant une stimulation sensorielle par vibrations reproduisant la marche chez des personnes hémiparétiques
Most of individuals with hemiparesis following a stroke present gait disabilities which limit their social participation. Prolonged gait training is recommended to optimize the recovery. This approach is founded on the importance of the sensory information produced by gait movements to recover the best possible control of movement. This information could also be induced by means of multiple localized muscular vibration. It has been showed that sequential and patterned vibration application on different muscles of lower limbs could mimic sensory activity associated with normal gait movement. The purpose of this project was to evaluate the effect of gait-like vibration training on gait parameter in hemiparetic people in subacute phase. To answer this question, a single case experimental design study with repeated measures was used with three individuals with hemiparesis during intensive functional rehabilitation. Each participant has received gait-like vibration training in 30-minute sessions, four times per week for three weeks. Comfortable and fast overground gait speeds were the principal outcome measures. Spatiotemporal data and gait pattern were also evaluated. Each data was collected twice before training, then at the end of each week of training and a month after the end of the training. Control data of overground gait speeds of individuals with hemiparesis in the same intensive rehabilitation facility, prospectively collected in a clinical database, has been used to compare the additional effect gait speed of the three participants. An increase of overground gait speed has been observed in only one of the three participants. This change appeared at the end of the first week of training and were superior to these obtained in the database participants. Gait-like vibration training has also permitted an improvement of the other spatiotemporal data and gait pattern of all three participants. Regarding these results, it seems necessary to continue the evaluation of gait-like vibration training to better understand these effects and develop a new tool of rehabilitation.
Proprioception Vibration Stroke Hemiparesis Gait Rehabilitation