social participation. Thus, clinically meaningful changes in gait speed were related to

highly significant changes in all domains, particularly for participation.

 The secondary objective was to characterize post-stroke fear of falling. Review of

qualitative interviews identified those with fear of falling. T-tests compared ADLs,

IADLs, and depression measures between those with and without fear. No significant

differences were found for the outcome measures; however, those with detected fear

exhibited slightly worse scores on all measures. Content analysis of the interviews

revealed five elements used to characterize post-stroke fear of falling: (1) onset of falling

with stroke event, (2) experiencing the changed body, (3) a pervasive fear of the

unpredictable, (4) falls as an everyday life experience, and (5) the strategies for managing

fear of falling. Such experiences and strategies became very individualized and imply the

need for future research regarding assessment and intervention of post-stroke fear of

falling.

 Collectively, these results indicate that many post-stoke individuals live in the

community, but still demonstrate residual mobility deficits. Decreased gait velocity and

developed fear of falling were related to activity restriction and modification, possibly

leading to further losses of independence, placing individuals at risk for decreased quality

of life and life satisfaction.