Walking Aids for Enabling Activity and Participation
Bibliographic record
Abstract
In this systematic literature review, we examined whether and how walking aids (i.e., canes, crutches, walkers, and rollators) enable activity and participation among adults with physical disabilities. Medline, Embase, all EBM reviews, PsychInfo, CINAHL, and Web of Science databases were used to identify studies published since 2008. Quantitative and qualitative designs were included. Data regarding participants, assistive device use, outcome measures, and domains of participation were extracted. Two reviewers independently rated the level of evidence and methodological quality of the studies. Outcomes were categorized per types of walking aids and activity and participation domains. Thirteen studies were included. Two studies involved canes, four pertained to rollators, and seven dealt with multiple types of walking aids. Mobility was the most frequently examined domain of activity and participation. Both negative and positive results were found. Negative outcomes were linked to the physical characteristics of the device, the use, environment, and personal reluctance. When incorporated in daily life, walking aids were found to enable several domains of activity and participation. Whether walking aids facilitate activity and participation may depend on the user's ability to overcome obstacles and integrate them in daily life. More high-quality research is needed to draw conclusions about their effectiveness.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.004 | 0.013 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.004 | 0.004 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.012 | 0.009 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.003 | 0.002 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Research integrity | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.006 | 0.001 |
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 source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), 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".