Background: The foot drop stimulator is designed to improve the walking ability of foot drop in patients after stroke, however, studies on clinical effects are still lacking. Objective: To investigate the effect of a foot drop stimulator on the walking and balancing abilities of foot drop patients after a stroke. Design: One-Group (Pretest-Posttest) Design. Methods: All subjects walked in all three conditions: foot drop stimulator (FDS) ankle foot orthosis (AFO) and barefoot. Primary outcome measures were assessed for walking and balance using a 10-m walking test (10MWT) and a timed up and go test (TUG). Secondary outcome measures consisted of a brief user interview, and the patients recorded the advantages and disadvantages of each condition. Results: FDS, AFO, and barefoot conditions showed a statistically significant difference in 10MWT and TUG (P<.001) as a result of comparing three conditions. FDS and AFO were significantly different from the barefoot condition as post-hoc results; however, there was no significant difference between the two conditions (P>.05). Conclusion: In this study, the foot drop stimulator contributed to improving the balance ability, and the walking ability was similar to the effect of the anklefoot orthosis.

Background: Ankle instability usually occurs after stroke, and contributes to unsafe walking and associated risk of falling in the affected patients. Objective: To investigate the effects of kinesiology taping (KT) on gait and balance ability (center of pressure, CoP) in patients with ankle instability after stroke. Design: One group, pre-post design. Methods: A total of 11 patients with ankle instability after stroke were enrolled. In all subjects, the gait and balance ability were assessed under 2 conditions: KT and barefoot. Gait and balance ability was assessed using GAITRite system and FDM-S platform. Results: Comparison between KT and barefoot condition, KT condition was significantly higher in velocity, cadence, step length, and stride length than barefoot condition (P<.05). KT condition was significantly lower in CoP path length and sway speed than barefoot condition (P<.05). Conclusion: KT indicated potential as a helpful method for walking and balancing ability in patients with ankle instability after stroke. Therefore, this study recommends KT as an option applicable to the stroke with ankle instability.

Background: Knee osteoarthritis (OA) causes not only pain during walking but also walking disorders. Therefore, intervention for older patients with OA is important. Objective: To study investigated the effects of kinesio taping (KT) on pain and walking ability in elderly persons with knee OA. Design: One group, pre-post design Methods: This study enrolled 12 community-dwelling elderly people with knee OA. KT was applied on the surrounding structures, including the patellar and bilateral lateral ligaments. Assessment was made using the visual analog scale and GAITRite system to measure pain and walking ability during KT and non- KT conditions. Results: In this study, compared to the non-KT condition, the KT condition showed a significant improvement in walking ability and pain reduction during walking (velocity, cadence, step length, and stride length) (p < 0.05). Conclusion: This study demonstrated that knee KT has a positive effect on pain reduction and walking ability of the elderly with OA.

We investigate the role of contact location information on the perception of local features dur- ing contour following in a virtual environment. An absolute identification experiment is conducted under force-alone and force-plus-contact-location conditions to investigate the effect of the contact location in- formation. The results show that the participants identify the local features significantly better in terms of higher information transfer for the force-plus-contact-location condition, while no significant difference was found for measures of the efficacy of contour following between the two conditions. Further data analyses indicate that the improved identification of local features with contact location information is due to the improved identification of small surface features.