Post-stroke Visual Gait Measure for Developing Countries: A Reliability and Validity Study.

Background: Visual gait assessment is a cost-effective clinical method to assess post-stroke gait deviations. The Rivermead Visual Gait Assessment (RVGA) is a one such measure that assesses the kinematic aspect of the gait deviations in stroke. However, the available information on psycho-clinocometric properties of the measure is not adequate.

Objective: To establish reliability and validity of RVGA using walking-videos of the post-stroke subjects.

Methods: Design: Observational study.

Setting: A rehabilitation institute Participants: A convenience sample of 40 chronic stroke patients.

Outcome Measures: RVGA, Fugl-Meyer assessment (lower extremity), 10-m walk test, Time up and go test, and Berg balance scale (BBS).

Procedure: Walking was video-taped from the anterior aspect, posterior aspect, affected side, and less-affected side. After coding the tapes, a research staff member provided them to four different raters in a random order. Each rater scored the coded video on the RVGA data collection sheet twice: one at the baseline and another after 1 month to eliminate any recollection of the initial assessment.

Results: The findings exhibit that there was good-to-excellent agreement between the scores of the raters and also between the assessments (correlation coefficient = 0.94 to 0.95; P < 0.001). The measure also exhibits acceptable validity when correlated with scores of BBS (r = 0.4; P < 0.001).

Conclusion: Video-based RVGA is a reliable and valid tool to assess gait-related impairment in post-stroke hemiparesis. This cost-effective measure may be incorporated in the clinical and research practice to discern and quantify complex phenomenon of the gait deviation. RVGA may be considered as a useful tool, especially in developing countries where expensive gait analyzer is usually not available.