A predictive value of the timed "up and go" test on the fall risk assessment of inpatients with stroke

Abstract

Objective To explore the predictive value of the timed up and go test on falling of inpatients with stroke, providing objective reference for clinical fall risk evaluation. Methods A total of 62 stroke in patients who were treated in the department of Neurology of the Second Affiliated Hospital of Shantou University Medical College from January 2018 to June 2018 were selected by the convenience sampling method. The timed up and go test was used to record the walking function of stroke inpatients. An ROC curve was used to analyze the efficacy in predicting falls of stroke inpatients. Results The TUGT has demonstrated intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) value of 0.963 (95%CI 0.938-0.978), and Cronbach alpha coefficient value of 0.983.The difference of the TUGT time between recurrent-fall stroke inpatients [15.69 (13.30, 19.87) seconds] and the patients without a history of falling [12.45 (10.08, 16.26) seconds] was statistically significant (Z=-2.585, P<0.05). Meanwhile, the difference of the TUGT time between male stroke inpatients [13.12 (10.23, 15.35) seconds] and female stroke inpatients [17.09 (12.98, 19.87) seconds] was also statistically significant (Z=-2.297, P<0.05). The TUGT time was significantly (P<0.05) positively correlated both with the fall history (rs=0.331) and gender (rs=0.294) in stroke inpatients. The result of ROC curve showed that the optimal TUGT cut-off point for predicting the fall of male stroke patients was 13.12 seconds with 0.696 for AUC, 78.6% for sensitivity and 68.2% for specificity (P<0.05).While the optimal TUGT cut-off point for predicting the fall of female stroke inpatients was 13.68 seconds with 0.691 for AUC, 73.3% for sensitivity and 65.6% for specificity (P<0.05). Conclusions Although TUGT has good feasibility in stroke inpatients, its predictive value for future falls of stroke inpatients is medium. The assessment and prediction of fall risk should be considered carefully by medical workers so as to reduce the occurrence of falls in stroke inpatients. Key words: Timed up and go test; Stroke; Fall; Prediction