FUKUDA TEST ©

Description of the Fukuda Test

This test allows to detect the influence of muscular hypertone during  on-site walk.

The patient is required to make 50 on-site steps with closed eyes raising the lower limbs high enough but not too much  (around 45°), neither too slowly nor too quickly (72 and 84 rests per minute). The head must be in a neutral position (neither turned nor inclined), the lower jaw at rest (the teeth don’t touch each other) and  barefoot.

Every normal subject carrying out an on-site walk rotates on him/herself until maximum 30°. The angle formed by the lateral movement is called Spin angle and measured.

The same test is carried out under the influence of nuchal reflex and the patient is required to repeat the march with the head turned on the left and then to the right. When the subject turns his/her head to the right, the extensor muscles tone of the right lower limb grows together with the contra-lateral rotator muscles tone, inversely to the left. This way, when the normal subject walks on-site with his/her head turned to the right, he/she should tendentially turn mainly to the left.

This research is carried out by means of the Total Trunk (Technogym, Gambettola, Italy) and the obtained detections allow to underline the strength of the muscles really concerned thus avoiding the co-activation of not relevant muscles that could lead to misleading remarks.

The patient carries out 6 tests with a maximal isometric contraction of 6 seconds, 3 tests with anterior trunk’s flexion and 3 tests on trunk’s extension with different inclinations.

The obtained data allow to immediately see the graph of maximum and medium strength of both flexor and extensor muscles.