Multiple Sclerosis Fall Risk Interventions

Authors

Affiliations

Nate Yomogida, B.S., SPT

Doctor of Physical Therapy

B.S. in Kinesiology

Chloë Kerstein, B.S., SPT

Doctor of Physical Therapy

B.A. in Neuroscience

Backwards Walking Fall Prediction

Edwards et al. 2020

Edwards et al. 2020¹

Item	Study
n	38
Study type	Retrospective Cohort
Measure
Dependent variable	“Fall diary”

Initial measures

Spatiotemporal measures of forward and backwards walking and fall history were collected¹.

Fall Risk Measures

For the following 6 months after, a fall diary was taken by participants¹

Fall risk contributors (associations)

Between forward vs backward velocity, vs stride length, double support time, age, disease severity and symptom duration, backwards walking velocity was the strongest unique predictor of falls Accurately classified 76.3% of the cases¹ Forward walking classification of fallers was about 71.1%¹

References

1.

Edwards EM, Daugherty AM, Nitta M, Atalla M, Fritz NE. Backward walking sensitively detects fallers in persons with multiple sclerosis. Multiple Sclerosis and Related Disorders. 2020;45:102390. doi:10.1016/j.msard.2020.102390