title: People with stroke living in the community: Attention deficits, balance, ADL ability and falls.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To describe levels of attention deficits among people with stroke living in the community and explore relationships between attention, balance, function and falls.
  
  
  METHODS
  Forty-eight mobile community-dwelling people with stroke (30 men, 18 women, mean age 68.4 +/- 11.2) were recruited to this cross-sectional investigation through General Practitioners. Twenty-six participants had a right, 21 a left hemisphere infarction and one had a brain stem lesion; mean time since stroke was 46 months (range five to 204). Participants' were interviewed about fall-events; attention, balance and function were assessed using standardised tests.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Visual inattention was identified in five participants (10%), deficits of sustained attention in 15 (31%), auditory selective attention in nine (19%), visual selective attention in 17 (35%) and divided attention deficits in 21 participants (43%). Sustained and divided attention scores correlated with balance, ADL ability and fall-status (p < 0.01). The balance and function of subjects with normal attention were better than those with abnormal scores (p < 0.01). Analysis of variance revealed differences between repeat-fallers and non-fallers with no near-falls for divided attention, balance and ADL ability (p < 0.01).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Attention deficits were common among this sample; sustained and divided attention deficits correlated with functional impairments and falls, highlighting that attention deficits might contribute to accident prone behaviour and falling.
authors.affiliation: Health and Rehabilitation Research Unit, University of Southampton, Southampton, UK. dh197@soton.ac.uk
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Hyndman
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Ashburn
mesh_terms: D000058:Accidental Falls / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D000203:Activities of Daily Living; D000328:Adult; D017677:Age Distribution; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D001288:Attention; D004185:Disability Evaluation; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D015994:Incidence; D008297:Male; D011939:Mental Recall; D008875:Middle Aged; D004856:Postural Balance; D011336:Probability; D011379:Prognosis; D011788:Quality of Life; D012042:Registries; D012111:Residence Characteristics; D018570:Risk Assessment; D012678:Sensation Disorders / Q000453:epidemiology*; D012720:Severity of Illness Index; D017678:Sex Distribution; D018709:Statistics, Nonparametric; D020521:Stroke / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000453:epidemiology*; D000071939:Stroke Rehabilitation; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires