Related Experiment Video
Updated: Oct 21, 2025
Quantitative Static and Dynamic Assessment of Balance Control in Stroke Patients
Published on: May 17, 2020
Which Balance Evaluation Systems Test sections best distinguish levels of post-stroke functional walking status?
Kazuhiro Miyata1, Satoshi Hasegawa, Hiroki Iwamoto
1Department of Physical Therapy, Ibaraki Prefectural University of Health Science, 300-0394 Inashiki-gun, Japan.
Objective:
To determine which sections of the Balance Evaluation Systems Test (BESTest) distinguish levels of post-stroke functional walking status and to establish their cut-off scores.
Design:
A retrospective cross-sectional study.
Subjects And Methods:
The BESTest was administered to 87 stroke patients who were able to walk without physical assistance upon discharge from the hospital. Subjects were divided into 3 functional walking status groups: namely, household ambulators, limited community ambulators, and unlimited community ambulators. The receiver operating characteristic curve was determined and the cut-off score and area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUROC) of each section calculated.
Results:
In the comparison of household and limited community ambulators, the accuracies of all BESTest sections were moderate (AUROC>0.7), and the cut-off scores were 36.1-78.6%. In the comparison of limited and unlimited community ambulators, one section (stability in gait) had high accuracy (AUROC=0.908, cut-off scores=73.8%) and 3 sections (biomechanical constraints, anticipatory postural adjustments, and postural response) had moderate accuracy (AUROC=0.8120-0.834, cut-off scores=75.0-83.4%).
Conclusion:
This study demonstrated that different sections of the BESTest had different abilities to discriminate levels of post-stroke functional walking status, and identified cut-off values for targeted improvement.
