Abstract
Objective
To determine the effectiveness of functional electrical stimulation (FES) on drop
foot in patients with multiple sclerosis (MS), using data from standard clinical practice.
Design
Case series with a consecutive sample of FES users collected between 2008 and 2013.
Setting
Specialist FES center at a district general hospital.
Participants
Patients with MS who have drop foot (N=187) (117 women, 70 men; mean age, 55y [range,
27–80y]; mean duration since diagnosis, 11.7y [range, 1–56y]). A total of 166 patients
were still using FES after 20 weeks, with 153 patients completing the follow-up measures.
Interventions
FES of the common peroneal nerve (178 unilateral, 9 bilateral FES users).
Main Outcome Measures
Clinically meaningful changes (ie, >.05m/s and >0.1m/s) and functional walking category
derived from 10-m walking speed.
Results
An increase in walking speed was found to be highly significant (P<.001), both initially where a minimum clinically meaningful change was observed (.07m/s)
and after 20 weeks with a substantial clinically meaningful change (.11m/s). After
20 weeks, treatment responders displayed a 27% average improvement in their walking
speed. No significant training effect was found. Overall functional walking category
was maintained or improved in 95% of treatment responders.
Conclusions
FES of the dorsiflexors is a well-accepted intervention that enables clinically meaningful
changes in walking speed, leading to a preserved or an increased functional walking
category.
Keywords
List of abbreviations:
AFO (ankle-foot orthosis), FES (functional electrical stimulation), MS (multiple sclerosis)To read this article in full you will need to make a payment
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: December 11, 2014
Footnotes
Supported by the National Health Service and the Salisbury Charitable Trust.
Disclosures: Taylor and Swain have a financial relationship with Odstock Medical Ltd, the company that manufactures and distributes the Odstock Dropped Foot Stimulator. Fifty percent of Taylor's time and 30% of Swain's time are seconded from Salisbury National Health Service Foundation Trust to Odstock Medical Ltd. The patents for the Odstock Dropped Foot Stimulator are assigned to Salisbury NHS Foundation Trust. Odstock Medical Ltd pays the Trust a license fee for use of the patents. No royalties are paid to the named patent authors. The other author has nothing to disclose.
Identification
Copyright
© 2015 American Congress of Rehabilitation Medicine. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
