Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Case Reports
. 2022 Jul 27;19(15):9204.
doi: 10.3390/ijerph19159204.

A 6-Month Home-Based Functional Electrical Stimulation Program for Foot Drop in a Post-Stroke Patient: Considerations on a Time Course Analysis of Walking Performance

Romain David  1   2 , Maxime Billot  1 , Etienne Ojardias  3 , Bernard Parratte  1 , Manuel Roulaud  1 , Amine Ounajim  1 , Frédéric Louis  4 , Hachemi Meklat  5 , Philippe Foucault  5 , Christophe Lombard  5 , Anne Jossart  2 , Laura Mainini  2 , Martin Lavallière  6 , Lisa Goudman  7   8   9 , Maarten Moens  7   8   10 , Davy Laroche  11   12 , Marjorie Salga  13   14 , François Genêt  13   14 , Jean-Christophe Daviet  15   16 , Anaick Perrochon  15 , Maxence Compagnat  15   16 , Philippe Rigoard  1   17   18
Affiliations
Case Reports

A 6-Month Home-Based Functional Electrical Stimulation Program for Foot Drop in a Post-Stroke Patient: Considerations on a Time Course Analysis of Walking Performance

Romain David et al. Int J Environ Res Public Health. .

Abstract

Foot drop is a common disability in post-stroke patients and represents a challenge for the clinician. To date, ankle foot orthosis (AFO) combined with conventional rehabilitation is the gold standard of rehabilitation management. AFO has a palliative mechanical action without actively restoring the associated neural function. Functional electrical stimulation (FES), consisting of stimulation of the peroneal nerve pathway, represents an alternative approach. By providing an FES device (Bioness L-300, BIONESS, Valencia, CA, USA) for 6 months to a post-stroke 22-year-old woman with a foot drop, our goal was to quantify its potential benefit on walking capacity. The gait parameters and the temporal evolution of the speed were collected with a specific connected sole device (Feet Me®) during the 10-m walking, the time up and go, and the 6-minute walking tests with AFO, FES, or without any device (NO). As a result, the walking speed changes on 10-m were clinically significant with an increase from the baseline to 6 months in AFO (+0.14 m.s-1), FES (+0.36 m.s-1) and NO (+0.32 m.s-1) conditions. In addition, the speed decreased at about 4-min in the 6-minute walking test in NO and AFO conditions, while the speed increased in the FES conditions at baseline and after 1, 3, and 6 months. In addition to the walking performance improvement, monitoring the gait speed in an endurance test after an ecological rehabilitation training program helps to examine the walking performance in post-stroke patients and to propose a specific rehabilitation program.

Keywords: ankle-foot orthosis; foot drop; functional electrical stimulation; mobility; rehabilitation; walking.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Gait speed evolution during the 6-MWT with NO (without any device), AFO (ankle-foot orthesis), and FES (functional electric stimulation) conditions at baseline (M0) and after 1 (M1), 3 (M3), and 6 (M6) months.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Hendricks H.T., van Limbeek J., Geurts A.C., Zwarts M.J. Motor recovery after stroke: A systematic review of the literature. Arch. Phys. Med. Rehabil. 2002;83:1629–1637. doi: 10.1053/apmr.2002.35473. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Dobkin B.H. Rehabilitation after Stroke. N. Engl. J. Med. 2005;352:1677–1684. doi: 10.1056/NEJMcp043511. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Dobkin B.H. Strategies for stroke rehabilitation. Lancet Neurol. 2004;3:528–536. doi: 10.1016/S1474-4422(04)00851-8. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Kluding P.M., Dunning K., O’dell M.W., Wu S.S., Ginosian J., Feld J., McBride K. Foot Drop Stimulation Versus Ankle Foot Orthosis After Stroke. Stroke. 2013;44:1660–1669. doi: 10.1161/STROKEAHA.111.000334. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Liberson W.T., Holmquest H.J., Scot D., Dow M. Functional electrotherapy: Stimulation of the peroneal nerve synchronized with the swing phase of the gait of hemiplegic patients. Arch. Phys. Med. Rehabil. 1961;42:101–105. - PubMed

Publication types