Cargando…

Perspectives of individuals with chronic spinal cord injury following novel balance training involving functional electrical stimulation with visual feedback: a qualitative exploratory study

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 stan...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Houston, David J., Unger, Janelle, Lee, Jae W., Masani, Kei, Musselman, Kristin E.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8017659/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33794948
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12984-021-00861-z
_version_ 1783674093858455552
author Houston, David J.
Unger, Janelle
Lee, Jae W.
Masani, Kei
Musselman, Kristin E.
author_facet Houston, David J.
Unger, Janelle
Lee, Jae W.
Masani, Kei
Musselman, Kristin E.
author_sort Houston, David J.
collection PubMed
description 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)
format Online
Article
Text
id pubmed-8017659
institution National Center for Biotechnology Information
language English
publishDate 2021
publisher BioMed Central
record_format MEDLINE/PubMed
spelling pubmed-80176592021-04-02 Perspectives of individuals with chronic spinal cord injury following novel balance training involving functional electrical stimulation with visual feedback: a qualitative exploratory study Houston, David J. Unger, Janelle Lee, Jae W. Masani, Kei Musselman, Kristin E. J Neuroeng Rehabil Short Report 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) BioMed Central 2021-04-01 /pmc/articles/PMC8017659/ /pubmed/33794948 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12984-021-00861-z Text en © The Author(s) 2021 Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.
spellingShingle Short Report
Houston, David J.
Unger, Janelle
Lee, Jae W.
Masani, Kei
Musselman, Kristin E.
Perspectives of individuals with chronic spinal cord injury following novel balance training involving functional electrical stimulation with visual feedback: a qualitative exploratory study
title Perspectives of individuals with chronic spinal cord injury following novel balance training involving functional electrical stimulation with visual feedback: a qualitative exploratory study
title_full Perspectives of individuals with chronic spinal cord injury following novel balance training involving functional electrical stimulation with visual feedback: a qualitative exploratory study
title_fullStr Perspectives of individuals with chronic spinal cord injury following novel balance training involving functional electrical stimulation with visual feedback: a qualitative exploratory study
title_full_unstemmed Perspectives of individuals with chronic spinal cord injury following novel balance training involving functional electrical stimulation with visual feedback: a qualitative exploratory study
title_short Perspectives of individuals with chronic spinal cord injury following novel balance training involving functional electrical stimulation with visual feedback: a qualitative exploratory study
title_sort perspectives of individuals with chronic spinal cord injury following novel balance training involving functional electrical stimulation with visual feedback: a qualitative exploratory study
topic Short Report
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8017659/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33794948
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12984-021-00861-z
work_keys_str_mv AT houstondavidj perspectivesofindividualswithchronicspinalcordinjuryfollowingnovelbalancetraininginvolvingfunctionalelectricalstimulationwithvisualfeedbackaqualitativeexploratorystudy
AT ungerjanelle perspectivesofindividualswithchronicspinalcordinjuryfollowingnovelbalancetraininginvolvingfunctionalelectricalstimulationwithvisualfeedbackaqualitativeexploratorystudy
AT leejaew perspectivesofindividualswithchronicspinalcordinjuryfollowingnovelbalancetraininginvolvingfunctionalelectricalstimulationwithvisualfeedbackaqualitativeexploratorystudy
AT masanikei perspectivesofindividualswithchronicspinalcordinjuryfollowingnovelbalancetraininginvolvingfunctionalelectricalstimulationwithvisualfeedbackaqualitativeexploratorystudy
AT musselmankristine perspectivesofindividualswithchronicspinalcordinjuryfollowingnovelbalancetraininginvolvingfunctionalelectricalstimulationwithvisualfeedbackaqualitativeexploratorystudy