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Al-Agele H1, Coffey I2
1International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), Physical Rehabilitation Programme, Geneva, Switzerland, 2University of Nottingham, Physiotherapy, Nottingham, United Kingdom
Background: Stroke is the most common medical condition that causing disability in high and low-mid income countries all over the world, where motor impairments, in specific, foot-drop that seconded to stroke has a direct impact on effecting the patients' ability and quality of life.
Purpose: To systematically reviewing the recent published RCTs that compare the effectiveness of FES to Splints in improving walking speed following a stroke, by analysing and synthesizing the effects of these two on walking speed using 10-meter walking test.
Methods: Through a comprehensive search strategy for eight electronic databases (Medline (via Ovid), Embase (via Ovid), CINAHL. PEDro, Scopus, CENTRAL, AMED) from the establishment date till June 2017, in addition to reference listing, hand searching and citation tracking were used to maximise the identified study pool.
Results: Eight RCTS with 916 participants included in this review, the included studies got a moderate to high methodological quality. Only one study reported a significant improvement (P= 0.001) for the FES in comparison with splints when the devices were not worn by the users, the other seven studies reported no significant improvement between groups, yet all the included studies reported that both interventions had a significant within group improvement in regards to walking speed that measured by 10MWT.
Conclusion(s): FES is not superior to Splints in improving walking speed post-stroke, both of the devices can be prescribed for the patients to improve their walking but tacking in consideration the patients' preferences.
Implications: For a couple of years, the recommendation of using Splints or FES was controversy among the physiotherapists and stroke rehabilitation specialists. This review has synthesized all the available RCTs and concludes that FES is effective as much as Splints to increase walking speed of people who survived a stroke and having a foot-drop impairment.
Keywords: Stroke, FES, Splints
Funding acknowledgements: The authors of this research acknowledged no fund has received from the public, commercial or private sectors.
Purpose: To systematically reviewing the recent published RCTs that compare the effectiveness of FES to Splints in improving walking speed following a stroke, by analysing and synthesizing the effects of these two on walking speed using 10-meter walking test.
Methods: Through a comprehensive search strategy for eight electronic databases (Medline (via Ovid), Embase (via Ovid), CINAHL. PEDro, Scopus, CENTRAL, AMED) from the establishment date till June 2017, in addition to reference listing, hand searching and citation tracking were used to maximise the identified study pool.
Results: Eight RCTS with 916 participants included in this review, the included studies got a moderate to high methodological quality. Only one study reported a significant improvement (P= 0.001) for the FES in comparison with splints when the devices were not worn by the users, the other seven studies reported no significant improvement between groups, yet all the included studies reported that both interventions had a significant within group improvement in regards to walking speed that measured by 10MWT.
Conclusion(s): FES is not superior to Splints in improving walking speed post-stroke, both of the devices can be prescribed for the patients to improve their walking but tacking in consideration the patients' preferences.
Implications: For a couple of years, the recommendation of using Splints or FES was controversy among the physiotherapists and stroke rehabilitation specialists. This review has synthesized all the available RCTs and concludes that FES is effective as much as Splints to increase walking speed of people who survived a stroke and having a foot-drop impairment.
Keywords: Stroke, FES, Splints
Funding acknowledgements: The authors of this research acknowledged no fund has received from the public, commercial or private sectors.
Topic: Neurology: stroke; Disability & rehabilitation; Outcome measurement
Ethics approval required: No
Institution: University of Nottingham
Ethics committee: Medicine and Health Science Faculty Ethical committee
Reason not required: As the research would not exposed to the subjects personally, emotionally or physically no need for ethical approval
All authors, affiliations and abstracts have been published as submitted.
