Assessing the Turning Ability during Walking in People with Stroke Using L Test

Area of Science:

• Rehabilitation Medicine
• Geriatric Medicine
• Neurology

Background:

• The L Test of Functional Mobility (L Test) assesses advanced mobility, including turning and walking.
• Stroke survivors often experience impaired mobility, particularly turning ability.

Purpose of the Study:

• Evaluate the intra-rater reliability of the L Test in four turning conditions.
• Correlate L Test performance with stroke-specific impairments in community-dwelling older adults with stroke.
• Determine the optimal L Test cut-off time to distinguish between healthy older adults and individuals with stroke.

Main Methods:

• Cross-sectional study design.
• Inclusion of 30 older adults with stroke and 30 healthy older adults.
• Assessment using the L Test and other stroke-specific outcome measures.

Main Results:

• Excellent intra-rater reliability for the L Test (ICC = 0.945-0.978) across four turning conditions.
• Significant correlations found between L Test completion times and Fugl-Meyer Assessment-Lower Extremity (FMA-LE), Fugl-Meyer Assessment-Upper Extremity (FMA-UE), Berg Balance Scale (BBS), and Timed Up and Go (TUG) Test scores.
• Optimal L Test cut-off completion time established between 23.41-24.13 seconds.

Conclusions:

• The L Test demonstrates excellent reliability for assessing turning ability in individuals with stroke.
• The L Test is a practical clinical tool for evaluating the functional mobility of stroke survivors.