Rehabilitation of post-stroke hemiplegic patients. II. Restudying functional assessment methods

Abstract

It has been observed clinically that there is a contradiction between the assessment of the function recovery of the hemiplegic limb and disability of walking. In part I it was also shown that controversy might exist regarding functional assessment methods. The purpose of this presentation is to show that the contradiction between the two can be demonstrated. It was demonstrated by using EMG that the potential functional recovery contributed to the improvement of the walking ability of a patient, even when the test results did not prove 'sufficiency'. I presented in this paper my original criteria assessment of walking ability which will be clinically useful and of course correlate it significantly to the functional recovery test. Both the functional recovery assessment and walking ability assessment method are reviewed in light of available literature. It is suggested that more valuable and simple functional assessment methods should be developed for the future.