Lord and colleagues extended this work and evaluated the relationships between

post-stroke gait speed and community ambulation [10]. Community ambulation was

defined as "locomotion outdoors to encompass activities such as visits to the

supermarket, shopping malls, and back; social outings; vacations; and pursuit of leisure

activities". All 130 post-stroke participants lived at home, 115 participants received

physical therapy for mobility impairments and 15 did not require therapy. Mobility

outcome measures assessed gait velocity, indoor and outdoor walking ability, functional

mobility, and gait endurance. An additional self-report questionnaire assessed community

ambulation according to unsupervised mobility. Participants were placed into one of four

ambulation categories (see Table 2-4.), 1) not ambulating outside of the home, 2)

ambulating as far as the letterbox, 3) ambulating within the immediate environment, 4)

ambulating in a shopping center and/or other places of interest.

 Those not requiring physical therapy post-stroke demonstrated the fastest gait

velocity. Gait speed was within normal limits for this group and significantly higher than

the overall mean, 1.36 m/s compared to .94 m/s. Gait speed differed between the four

categories and increased as community ambulation increased (Table 2-4). The self-report

questionnaire indicated 14.6% of the participants were unable to leave their home

unsupervised, 16.9% were able to walk to the letterbox, 7.6% were limited to ambulating

in their immediate environment, and 60.7% were able to ambulate within a shopping

center and/or other place of interest. The authors concluded gait velocity was important to

community ambulation and demonstrated that nearly one third of the sample was not able

to ambulate independently within the community after a stroke.