Grant: CIHR New Investigator

More than 50% of people who suffer a stroke are unable to walk on their own and require intensive rehabilitation with a physical therapist to relearn how to walk again. It is important for physical therapists to assess walking using standardized tests at the beginning of therapy and over time to see how people with stroke are responding to treatment. High quality tests that can be used to see how fast and how far a person can walk are excellent tests to use in people who have trouble walking after a stroke. Although information about walk tests is available in research reports, physical therapists are not using this information or these walk tests in clinical practice. Educational guides are needed to pull all the research information together in one place so therapists can access the information more easily. Posting guides on the Internet means the guide will be available to physical therapists across the world. If we also post videos to show therapists how to give these walk tests to patients, and describe examples of how to use test scores with patients, then physical therapists may be more likely to use these tests. We would like to develop a guide for the Internet, and use videos and patient examples to show therapists how to use walk tests with patients. Then we will invite about 30 physical therapists who work in Ontario and Nova Scotia to review the guide and use the information in their clinical practice. After they use the guide, we will interview them to hear about their experiences using the guide, and to learn what specific features of the guide helped them to begin using walk tests, or to use walk tests more consistently than before to evaluate walking problems in people who have had a stroke. Our results will help others to develop guides that will make it easier for healthcare professionals to adopt new and better ways of delivering healthcare.