Effects of a Newly Designed Pelvic Belt Orthosis on Functional Mobility of Adults with Post-Stroke Hemiparesis

Purpose : Lower extremity orthoses have been used as conservative methods to recover gait of the stroke patients. The purpose of this study is to examine how newly designed pelvic belt orthosis can improve gait ability and dynamic balance of adults with Hemiparesis after stroke. Methods : 22 patients who had hemiparesis after stroke participated in this study. Two groups were randomly created by assigning 10 subjects to the experimental group and the rest of the 12 subjects to the control group. The control group was treated by conventional physical therapy and occupational therapy. Identical therapy protocols were used to treat the experimental group who were assigned to wear the pelvic belt orthosis during post measurement. This study has a group of independent variables including group, gender, age, height, MAS, lesion side, cause and a group of dependent variables including gait speed, cadence, step length, stride length, and dynamic balance. The GAITRite system was used to measure spatial-temporal gain parameters and the balance system SD to measure dynamic balance. The data was analyzed using R version 3.3.1. Random forest, boosting algorithm, and MANOVA test were conducted to determine the effects of independent variables on dependent variables. Results : This study has a group of independent variables including group, gender, age, height, MAS, lesion side, cause and a group of dependent variables including gait speed, cadence, step length, stride length, and dynamic balance. The independent variable "group" has the most important value, which is approximately 25.42 (%IncMSE) representing a value three times greater than the second important predictor "height." Conclusion : As a result of this research, the hypothesis is validated with conclusion that Pelvic Belt orthosis could be effectively used for improving gait ability and balance of the patients with post-stroke hemiparesis.