The BBS is a psychometrically sound measure of balance impairment for use in poststroke assessment. Given the floor and ceiling effects, clinicians may want to use the BBS in conjunction with other balance measures.

Background and Purpose-A new gait training strategy for patients with stroke proposes to support a percentage of the patient's body weight while retraining gait on a treadmill. This research project intended to compare the effects of gait training with body weight support (BWS) and with no body weight support (no-BWS) on clinical outcome measures for patients with stroke. Methods-One hundred subjects with stroke were randomized to receive one of two treatments while walking on a treadmill: 50 subjects were trained to walk with up to 40% of their body weight supported by a BWS system with overhead harness (BWS group), and the other 50 subjects were trained to walk bearing full weight on their lower extremities (no-BWS group). Treatment outcomes were assessed on the basis of functional balance, motor recovery, overground walking speed, and overground walking endurance. Results-After a 6-week training period, the BWS group scored significantly higher than the no-BWS group for functional balance (Pϭ0.001), motor recovery (Pϭ0.001), overground walking speed (Pϭ0.029), and overground walking endurance (Pϭ0.018). The follow-up evaluation, 3 months after training, revealed that the BWS group continued to have significantly higher scores for overground walking speed (Pϭ0.006) and motor recovery (Pϭ0.039). Conclusions-Retraining gait in patients with stroke while a percentage of their body weight was supported resulted in better walking abilities than gait training while the patients were bearing their full weight. This novel gait training strategy provides a dynamic and integrative approach for the treatment of gait dysfunction after stroke. (Stroke. 1998;29:1122-1128.)

Lack of education, negative perceptions about research and physical therapists' role in EBP, and low self-efficacy to perform EBP activities represent barriers to implementing EBP for people with stroke that can be addressed through continuing education. Organizational provision of access to Web-based resources is likely insufficient to enhance research use by clinicians.

The importance of assessing the impact of treatments for chronic conditions on an individual's quality of life has been well-established. In this randomized clinical trial, oral-health-related quality of life, measured with the Oral Health Impact Profile (OHIP), was compared between two groups of edentulous patients. One group (n = 54) received mandibular implant-supported overdentures, and the other group (n = 48) received conventional dentures. Assessments were performed pre-treatment and two months after the prostheses were delivered. The multivariate model showed that implant treatment was significantly associated with lower post-treatment OHIP scores (p = 0.0002), indicating a better quality of life. In addition, pretreatment OHIP scores, treatment allocation, age, sex, and marital status explained 31% of the variation in post-treatment OHIP scores (F = 0.0001). These results suggest that implant treatment provides significant short-term improvement over conventional treatment in oral-health-related quality of life.

The current evidence on the effectiveness of using VR in the rehabilitation of the UL in patients with stroke is limited but sufficiently encouraging to justify additional clinical trials in this population.

Rehabilitation guideline developers should prioritize evidence for implementation and employ user-friendly language. Guideline implementation strategies must be extremely time efficient. Organizational approaches may be required to overcome the barriers. [Box: see text].

While this review suggests the use of active, multi-component knowledge translation interventions to enhance knowledge and practice behaviors of physical therapists, additional research is needed to understand the impact of these strategies on occupational therapists. Serious research gaps remain regarding which knowledge translation strategies impact positively on patient outcomes.

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