title: The provision of a cane provides greater benefit to community-dwelling people after stroke with a baseline walking speed between 0.4 and 0.8 metres/second: an experimental study.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To investigate the effect of the provision of a cane on walking ability in ambulatory people with chronic stroke.
  
  
  METHODS
  Experimental study.
  
  
  METHODS
  Clinics within the community.
  
  
  METHODS
  Twenty-four people on average 6 years after a stroke, who were not regular users of walking sticks. Participants were categorized as slow (<0.4 metres/second), intermediate (0.4-0.8 metres/second), or fast walkers (>0.8 metres/second) on the basis of their baseline walking ability.
  Walking with and without a cane.
  
  
  METHODS
  Walking ability was measured using the 10-m Walk Test and reported as speed (metres/second), step length (metres), and cadence (steps/minute).
  
  
  RESULTS
  Overall, the provision of a cane produced no significant change in speed (0.05 metres/second, 95% CI -0.01 to 0.11) or cadence (-3 steps/minute; 95% CI -8 to 3), but a small increase in step length (0.04 metres, 95% CI 0.03 to 0.06). For the intermediate walkers, the cane increased speed by 0.18 metres/second (95% CI 0.11 to 0.24), step length by 0.07 metres (95% CI 0.05 to 0.09), but not cadence. The provision of a cane to the intermediate walkers also produced 0.27 metres/second (95% CI 0.18 to 0.36) more increase in speed compared with the fast walkers, and 0.12 metres/second (95% CI 0.03 to 0.21) more increase compared with the slow walkers.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The provision of a cane produced most benefit to a subgroup of intermediate walkers in a group of community-dwelling people with chronic stroke whose walking had stabilized, without detriment to quality of walking.
authors.affiliation: Discipline of Physiotherapy, The University of Sydney, Australia; NeuroGroup, Discipline of Physiotherapy, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Brazil. Electronic address: lrn@ufmg.br.
authors.forename: Lucas R
authors.initials: LR
authors.lastname: Nascimento
authors.affiliation: Discipline of Physiotherapy, The University of Sydney, Australia. Electronic address: louise.ada@sydney.edu.au.
authors.forename: Louise
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Ada
authors.affiliation: NeuroGroup, Discipline of Physiotherapy, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Brazil. Electronic address: lfts@ufmg.br.
authors.forename: Luci F
authors.initials: LF
authors.lastname: Teixeira-Salmela
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D002183:Canes; D002908:Chronic Disease; D005260:Female; D005684:Gait; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D012111:Residence Characteristics; D000071939:Stroke Rehabilitation / Q000295:instrumentation*; D000072797:Walking Speed
keywords: Assistive devices; Gait; Rehabilitation; Stroke