Project Overview

In the United States, 9.4 million individuals currently live with stroke and approximately 795,000 individuals are newly affected each year, making stroke a leading cause of long-term disability. For most stroke survivors, the recovery of walking is widely recognized as a paramount goal. To improve walking speed and gait performance, ankle foot orthoses (AFOs) are often prescribed to provide foot clearance during swing, and stability during the stance phases of gait, thus allowing individuals a faster cadence or longer stride length when walking. However, even when including those that are prescribed AFOs, only 50% achieve the ability to walk at speeds associated with limited community mobility (0.4 m/s to 0.8 m/s), which is still far below the 1.2 m/s required to negotiate a typical crosswalk. The purpose of this study is to improve AFO prescription guidelines by measuring the ability of stroke survivors' ability to walk in the community in three different AFO designs, and determine the relationships between different measures of performance and AFO design.