Visual and haptic verticality misperception and trunk control within 72 h after stroke.
INTRODUCTION
Stroke patients often exhibit an altered perception of verticality, but there are no studies evaluating verticality perception in the first 72 h after stroke and its relationship with trunk control. Therefore, this study aimed to analyze visual and haptic verticality in the acute phase of stroke.


METHODS
This was a cross-sectional study conducted with two groups: (a) 13 individuals with stroke and (b) 12 healthy participants. We assessed verticality via the subjective visual vertical (SVV) and the subjective haptic vertical (SHV); and we measured trunk control with the Trunk Impairment Scale (TIS). We performed t-tests to compare the SVV and SHV between groups. Pearson correlation was performed between verticality tests with National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale (NIHSS) and the TIS.


RESULTS
Participants with recent stroke presented higher true and absolute SVV deviation values than did the control group. There was significant negative correlation between absolute (r = -0.57; p = 0.02) and true SVV (r = -0.54; p = 0.01) with TIS scores There was also significant positive correlation between absolute (r = 0.63; p = 0.009) and true SVV (r = 0.61; p = 0.003) with NIHSS. A significant negative correlation between NIHSS and TIS scores also was found (r = -0.80; p = 0.005).


CONCLUSION
Individuals with acute stroke presented larger variability in their perceptions of visual verticality than did healthy controls, and verticality perceptions were positively correlated with trunk impairment.
['Pascucci Sande de Souza|Luciane Aparecida|LA|', 'Ferreira|Luana Ribeiro|LR|', 'Silva Bitencourt|Ana Carolina|AC|', 'Bazan|Rodrigo|R|', 'Luvizutto|Gustavo José|GJ|']
D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies D064368:Healthy Volunteers D006801:Humans D013028:Space Perception D020521:Stroke D014481:United States D014796:Visual Perception
Verticality Trunk Stroke Subjective visual vertical Subjective haptic vertical