What is Gait assessment in basilar artery stroke?

Answer 1

In medicine and nursing, "gait" means walking or the ability to walk.

Many illnesses and conditions require a "gait assessment", which is a task nurses perform or should perform every day a patient is gotten up from bed or from a chair to stand and walk.

A normal healthy gait is steady, basically straight-line walking, with strength and vigor.

In minor to major illnesses, a gait can become unsteady, halting (meaning the patient stops every 1 to few steps), weak, uncoordinated, etc. Nurses and doctors use mostly their own observations of gait to review a current diagnosis or to associate symptoms with a diagnosis.

In Stroke, the gait can be affected in numerous ways. The primary affect is whether the person has paralysis or is able to control both legs; most major strokes result in one-sided paraylsis.

So, during a gait assessment, a nurse charts what she sees. If there are objective findings (such as how far a patient could ambulate), those findings are charted as well.