Postural instability years after stroke

Abstract

Background: Following a stroke, balance disturbances often persist despite full recovery of the paretic side.

Aims: The aims were to determine how long postural instability could be detected after stroke and the differences in post-stroke patients under and above 65 years of age.

Methods: Static and dynamic posturography (passing weights from hand to hand around the body) measurements were performed on 29 patients with stroke after 3 ± 2.4 years (≤65 years) and 4.7 ± 3.3 years. (> 65 years) compared with 38 controls.

Results: Only the pathway and the velocity assessed by dynamic posturography were significantly higher (p < 0.05) in the younger group of patients compared with the controls. The older group of patients had significantly elevated parameters measured by both static (p < 0.01) and dynamic posturography (p < 0.05).

Conclusions: we conclude, using a sensitive and reproducible method to assess both static and dynamic adjustments to maintain balance, that postural instability is significantly greater in post-stroke patients than control subjects. This difference is demonstrable up to 4 years after stroke, despite full recovery of the affected side.

Keywords: Balance; Postural instability; Static and dynamic posturography; Stroke.