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Updated: Sep 6, 2025
Motor Dual-Tasks for Gait Analysis and Evaluation in Post-Stroke Patients
Published on: March 11, 2021
Italian translation and transcultural validation of an assessment tool for community ambulation in stroke survivors:
Carmen Barbato1, Laura Antonucci2, Leonardo Pellicciari1
1PROMISE@LAB IRCCS Fondazione Don Carlo Gnocchi, Florence, Italy.
Background:
Community ambulation ability is one of the most important functional loss after stroke. The assessment of the level of community walking plays an important role in the multidimensional bio-psycho-social approach, to improve quality of life and social participation of stroke survivors. The modified Functional Walking Categories (mFWC) is a worldwide widely used tool to assess community ambulation in stroke survivors, but no Italian version is yet available.
Objective:
To cross-culturally adapt the mFWC into Italian and to assess its validity and reliability.
Methods:
According to the international guidelines, a multistep translation and cultural adaptation were conducted and revised by a committee of experts. Patients admitted to intensive inpatient rehabilitation with a sub-acute stroke were recruited. Inter- and intra-rater reliability and construct validity were studied.
Results:
Sixty patients with sub-acute stroke were prospectively enrolled in this study. Findings showed almost perfect intra- and inter-rater reliability (k = 1.000 [95% CI 1.000-1.000] and k = 0.984 [95% CI 0.955-1.000], respectively). The construct validity of the scale was satisfactory, as 100.0% a-priori hypotheses were met.
Conclusions:
The Italian mFWC offers a valid tool for measuring community ambulation in stroke patients. Our work provides a validated and a cross-cultural adapted Italian version of the mFWC to accurately measure community ambulation both in clinical and research settings in Italy.
