This trial showed that participants who undertook four months of treadmill training improved significantly selleck chemicals more than a no-intervention

control group on several outcomes: increased comfortable walking speed by 0.12 m/s, increased fast walking speed by 0.15 m/s and increased walking distance by 38 m. Although the participants all walked slower than normal at baseline (< 1.1 m/s), ambulatory levels were heterogeneous (mean walking speed 0.50 m/s, SD 0.26). This raises the possibility that the effect of treadmill training in this group of ambulatory stroke survivors may differ, based on their baseline walking speed. Walking speed has been shown to be associated with community ambulation and participation following stroke.7 and 8 There is evidence that people who walk very slowly (ie, gait speed ≤ 0.4 m/s) rarely venture outside their homes, while those who walk faster (ie, gait speed > 0.4 m/s) Ku-0059436 have some ability to ambulate around their community. Those who walk even faster (ie, gait speed > 0.8 m/s) are able to ambulate fully around their community.7 As the current study is a secondary analysis of the AMBULATE trial, investigating whether baseline walking speed in people with chronic stroke

has a differential effect on mobility outcomes following treadmill training, a cut-off of 0.4 m/s was used to subdivide participants from the AMBULATE trial

into faster versus slower walkers. Therefore, the specific research question for this study was: After stroke, does treadmill training to improve walking speed and distance have to a greater effect on community-dwelling people who walk faster than 0.4 m/s than those who walk more slowly? Data collected in the AMBULATE trial6 were used in this study. The AMBULATE trial was a three-arm randomised trial with concealed allocation, assessor blinding, and intention-to-treat analysis involving 102 people with stroke who could walk slowly, lived in the community and had ceased all formal rehabilitation. An experimental group undertook 30 minutes of treadmill and overground walking thrice per week for four months, a second experimental group undertook training for two months, while the control group had no intervention. At four months, the experimental group that had trained for four months walked further, faster and reported better health than those who received no training. However, this effect had disappeared by 12 months. The present study is a subgroup analysis of slow and fast walkers in the experimental group that trained for four months, and in the control group. Any differential effects of walking speed on the outcomes that demonstrated improvement in the primary analysis, ie, walking distance, walking speed (comfortable and fast) and health status were examined.