Perspectives of individuals with chronic spinal cord injury following novel balance training involving functional electrical stimulation with visual feedback: a qualitative exploratory study
Bibliographic record
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Individuals with an incomplete spinal cord injury (iSCI) are highly susceptible to falls during periods of walking or standing. We recently reported the findings of a novel intervention combining functional electrical stimulation with visual feedback balance training (FES + VFBT) on standing balance abilities among five individuals with motor iSCI. However, the previous publication did not report the perceived impact of the intervention on the participants' lives. In this report, the experiences of these five individuals with incomplete spinal cord injury (iSCI) who had recently completed the four-week balance training program are described. METHODS: Five individuals with a motor iSCI took part in this study. Each individual was at least 12 months post-injury, capable of unassisted standing for 60 s and had a Berg Balance Scale Score < 46. Participants completed twelve sessions of a novel balance intervention combining closed-loop functional electrical stimulation with visual feedback balance training (FES + VFBT). Participants received visual feedback regarding their centre of pressure position as they completed balance-training exercises while FES was applied to the ankle plantarflexors and dorsiflexors bilaterally. Semi-structured interviews were conducted after completion of the balance training intervention and eight-weeks post-training to understand participant's experiences. Categories and themes were derived from the transcripts using conventional content analysis. RESULTS: Three themes were identified from the collected transcripts: (1) Perceived benefits across International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health levels; (2) Change in perceived fall risk and confidence; (3) Motivation to keep going. CONCLUSIONS: Participation in the FES + VFBT program resulted in perceived benefits that led to meaningful improvements in activities of daily living. Following completion of the training, individuals felt they still had the capacity to improve. Individuals felt they had increased their balance confidence, while a few participants also reported a decrease in their risk of falling. The inclusion of qualitative inquiry allows for the evaluation of the meaningfulness of an intervention and its perceived impact on the lives of the participants. TRIAL REGISTRATION: NCT04262414 (retrospectively registered February 10, 2020).
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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 | 0.008 | 0.013 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.010 | 0.009 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.004 | 0.003 |
| Open science | 0.002 | 0.006 |
| Research integrity | 0.003 | 0.004 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.003 | 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 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".