fall risk; fall risk assessment; stroke

Úvod: Následky cévní mozkové příhody (CMP) mohou vést k poruše balančních schopností spojených s vysokým rizikem pádu v prostředí nemocnice i po propuštění. K identifikaci míry rizika pádu existuje mnoho heterogenních nástrojů. Hodnocení vztahů nejčastěji používaných testů může vést k vysvětlení jejich použitelnosti v praxi. Cíl: Posouzení vztahu mezi vybranými nástroji používanými v klinické praxi rehabilitačního prostředí, hodnotící riziko pádu u pacientů po CMP a potvrzení platnosti tohoto vztahu při kognitivní dysfunkci.

Background: The consequences of stroke can lead to impaired balance skills associated with a high risk of falls in the hospital setting and after discharge. Many heterogeneous tools exist to assess the level of fall risk. Evaluating the relationships between the most commonly used tests may lead to an explanation of their applicability and effectiveness in practice. Aim: To assess the relationship between selected tools used in clinical practice in the rehabilitation setting to assess fall risk in post-stroke patients and to confirm the validity of this relationship in cognitive dysfunction. Methods: A prospective cross-sectional study was conducted on a cohort of 84 patients (42 women, age 66.7 ± 9.36 years) after ischemic stroke ≤ 3 months with a follow-up period of 6 months. All subjects performed instrumented posturography (Somatosen-sory Organization Test – SOT), clinical test (Berg Balance Scale – BBS), nursing screening (Risk of Falls by Juraskova – RPJ) and sub-jective fear of falls questionnaire (The Falls Efficacy Scale International – FESI). Cognitive function was assessed with the Montreal Cognitive Test. The correlation between the tests was determined by Spearman’s correlation coefficient at the 5% significance level. Results: Statistically significant negative correlations between SOT and FESI, BBS and FESI, and positive correlations between SOT and BBS were found in all cases. Nursing screening of RPJ showed a statistically significant correlation, only in the case of the assessment group with unconfirmed cognitive deficit, in the other cases the correlation was statistically insignificant. Conclusion: Increased fear of falling in the study population of post-stroke patients has a statistically significant association with low level of balance, which is valid in the whole population, but also in the group of patients with confirmed cognitive deficit. Nursing screening did not show a statistically significant correlation with balance assessment tools.