Tetsutaro YAHATA, Katsuhiko TACHINO, Fujiko SOMEYA, Toshiaki YAMAZAKI, Kenji KAGECHIKA, Naohisa KIKUCHI

Department of Rehabilitation Medicine, Kanazawa University School of Medicine

(Received 28 October 1996; accepted 24 December 1996)

Abstract: A 70-year-old female, suffering the left hemiballism due to the infarction of the right subthalamic nucleus probably because of hypotension during operation, showed a very characteristic synkinetic gait swing of the involved leg, which swinged as if writing a letter ' S.' This phenomenon appeared when her involved leg swinged with a pace in 0.7 to 1sec, and her gait with this ' S-shape swing' was stable. We tried the gait exercise, making her walk continually with the pace described above. About two months later after onset, she was able to walk stably and continually with this ' S-shape swing.' From the video analysis, we found that the ' S-shape swing' was synchronizing with the frequency of her ballistic movement which was 1 to 1.5Hz. This gait exercise may be good for the patients with gait disturbance due to hemiballistic movement, and it may allow them to walk independently at the earlier stage after onset.

Key words: hemiballism, rehabilitation,gait exercise, synkinesis