Screening of Stroke Patients Using Performance Oriented Mobility Assessment (POMA) Scale

Abstract

Background: The rapid growth of the elderly population has resulted in a corresponding rise in thenumber of elderly individuals who experience disability during their lifetimes.Objective: The purpose of this study was to test the usefulness of four established clinical measures ofbalance, gait, and subjective perceptions of fear of falling as screening methods for referring communityindividuals living in residential care for detailed physical therapy evaluation and possible intervention.Methods: 50 elderly individuals living in two residential care for the elderly were tested on clinicalmeasures of balance and mobility. Their performance on these measures was compared with a physicaltherapist’s brief evaluation of disability and appropriateness for more detailed evaluation. The usefulnessof these tools as screening methods was determined by calculating validating levels using the physicaltherapist’s evaluation as a standard.Results: Thus, it can be analysed thatthe p < 0.0001 was kept as a highly significant reference value.Conclusion: This study concludes that screening for balance and gait in elderly stroke patients witha combination of components which mainly measures the balance and gait using the performanceoriented mobility assessment (POMA) scale gives the highest validity for the screening of strokepatients compared to the other scales.