Effect of the knee-controlling orthosis on lower limb function in the quinquagenarian and elderly patients suffering from stroke-induced severe hemiplegics

Objective To investigate the effect of knee-controlling orthosis on lower limb function recovery in thequinquagenarian and elderly patients with stroke suffering from severe hemiplegics. Methods Twenty-eight patients withproprioceptive sense affected and/ or with unilateral spatial neglect after stroke were randomly divided into orthosis groupand control group with 14 cases in each group.All patients received routine rehabilitation therapy in upright position,and thepatients in the orthosis group dressed orthosis while they received standing or walking therapy.Assessment of Fugl-Meyerscale( FMAL) for affected lower limb, brunel balance assessment( BBA), holden functional ambulate classification(FAC),cancellation task(CT) and modified barthel index(MBI) were carried out before and 1 month after therapy. Results One month later, both groups showed excellent improvement in all items(P 0. 05) except CT(P 0. 05). Thescores of BBA,FAC,MBI in the orthosis group were better than those of the control group(P0. 05 orP0. 01),while nosignificant difference was found in the score of CT and FMAL(P0. 05). Conclusions Knee-controlling orthosis can im-prove the functional ability of the affected lower limbs in the quinquagenarian and elderly patients with stroke suffering fromsevere hemiplegics.