Researchers have recommended that lower limb amputees use the best of five-timed one-leg stand test trials in clinical practice and research, according to results of a recently published study.
Thirty-six patients who were admitted to an acute orthopedic ward between October 2010 and July 2012 and who had a major unilateral non-traumatic lower limb amputation were included in the study. Supervised by a physical therapist, researchers had patients perform five-timed one-leg stand test (OLST) trials with 1-minute rest intervals between trials. In all, 28 of the patients were included in the reliability-part and conducted the tests twice separated by a mean of 3.4 hours. Researchers found no learning curve for the five OLST trials. Study results showed the best of the five trials reached a median of 2.9 seconds with six patients able to stand for more than 10 seconds.
“We recommend that the best of five-timed OLST trials be used for lower limb amputee patients in clinical practice and research, as excellent reliability and acceptable agreement for a group of and a single patient presenting low OLST times were seen,” the researchers concluded. “We recommend that the standardized procedure used in the present study be used in future studies of OLST.”
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Disclosure: The researchers report no relevant financial disclosures.
