CHARACTERISTIC PACE - A POTENTIAL TOOL FOR VASCULAR SURGEONS,
Abstract
The purpose of the present paper was to investigate the relevancy, availability, and effectiveness of providing the vascular surgeon access to a valid and reliable behavioral measure. (1) Operations for femoral-popliteal occlusive disease are frequently indicated by a particularly elusive symptom--claudication. A reliable measure of walking behavior was shown to provide a meaningful basis for: (a) quantifying the subjective evaluations inherent in claudication as one of the primary indicants for surgery; (b) differentiating, comparing and grouping patients on the basis of extent of claudication; (c) describing and communicating more fully and objectively the results of an operation; and (d) comparing the results of a particular operation with norms developed from the results of comparable and also different surgical techniques. (2) A tracking-treadmill procedure was described which provides the basis for a valid and reliable behavioral measure--the patient's characteristic or 'comfortable-but-determined' (C-D) pace, stable on any given day and, after practice, from day to day, yet patients' (C-D) paces differ significantly from each other. (3) Applying the tracking-treadmill procedure and obtaining C-D pace measures in an actual case provided the surgeon the opportunity to: (a) evaluate intermittent claudication following bilateral autogenous saphenous vein bypass grafts for femoral-popliteal occlusive disease; (b) describe the degree of walking impairment in quantitative terms; (c) relate the degree of impairment to a certain set of norms; and (d) specify realistic work situations in which the patient could not be expected to function. (Author)
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Dec 07, 1966
- Accession Number
- AD0647537
Entities
People
- Gary L. Holmgren
Organizations
- United States Army Medical Research Laboratory