A pilot study examining measures of balance and mobility in children with unilateral lower-limb amputation
Bibliographic record
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Individuals with unilateral lower-limb amputation (LLA) have altered structure and physiology of their lower limbs which impairs their balance, mobility, physical function and participation in physical activities. As part of (re)habilitation, focus is given to improving gait and balance in order to enhance overall mobility, function, self-efficacy, and independence. However, the relationships amongst body impairments and physical activity limitations remain unclear, particularly in the pediatric population. OBJECTIVE: To provide an examination of the relationships among balance and mobility measures in children with unilateral lower-limb amputation and able-bodied children. STUDY DESIGN: Cross-sectional prospective comparative pilot study. METHODS: Spatiotemporal gait parameters and standing postural control were evaluated in children with lower-limb amputation (n = 10) and age-matched able-bodied children (n = 10) in a laboratory-based setting. Clinical tests for mobility and balance consisted of the 10-m walk test, the 6-min walk test, and the Community Balance and Mobility scale. Energy expenditure was estimated during the 6-min walk test using the Physiological Cost Index. Analysis included comparing variables between able-bodied and lower-limb amputation groups, as well as examining the correlations among them. RESULTS: Walking speed, distance, and functional balance (p < 0.05) were significantly diminished in children with lower-limb amputation compared to able-bodied children. For children with lower-limb amputation, reduced energy expenditure was associated with narrower step width and more symmetrical gait; better postural control and balance were associated with faster walking speeds (p < 0.05). CONCLUSION: A greater clinical understanding of gait and balance deficits in this population may help to improve rehabilitation outcomes and overall functional mobility. CLINICAL RELEVANCE: Improved understanding of deficits in children with lower-limb amputation (LLA) may lead to more targeted interventions and facilitate clinical decision-making in rehabilitation settings for this population. The findings contribute to the limited literature and provide a basis to further examine suitable clinical outcome measures to be used in children with LLA.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame distilled prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. Learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and 10,348 direct Gemma labels. Candidate is the union of thresholded teacher heads; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels or direct frontier model labels.
Codex and Gemma teacher scores by category
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one teacher head, not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".