A study published online June 28 in Physiotherapy Theory and Practice concluded that lower balance confidence is associated with less community participation, lower self-perceived mobility, and poorer performance among people with lower-limb amputations.
The retrospective, cross-sectional study was conducted at an outpatient, multidisciplinary amputee clinic. Forty-five participants who were at least 18 years old, had a unilateral transfemoral or transtibial amputation at least one year prior, and used a prosthesis were included. The participants completed three self-report measures: the Activities-specific Balance Confidence Scale (ABC); the Community Integration Questionnaire (CIQ); and the Locomotor Capabilities Index (LCI); and two performance-based measures: the Timed Up and Go (TUG) test and the six-minute walk test (6MWT).
Linear regression modeling was used to explore relationships between balance-confidence and self-report and performance-based measures. After controlling for potential covariates such as age, sex, and body mass index, balance-confidence explained 47.4 percent of the variance in the CIQ, 53 percent of the variance in the LCI, 20.3 percent of the variance in the TUG, and 18.2 percent of the variance in the 6MWT.