Abstract
Sir: We wish to thank Drs Rommers and Wiggerts for their encouraging comments and recognition of the Stanmore-Kingston Splat.
We agree that goal-setting is of major importance in all rehabilitation programmes as confirmed in the Royal College of Physicians' standards for rehabilitation medicine quoted in our paper. We believe that these goals must be set by the patients and the most effective way to set realistic goals is jointly in consultation with the therapist or rehabilitation team. It is acknowledged that tasks in the LCI are pre-set and as such may not be suitable or appropriate for an individual. In this case, a goal of zero would be set. However, the tasks in the LCI are building blocks and the therapist helps the patient to achieve their goal in daily living by breaking it down into the component tasks in the LCI.
Figure 2 in our article was intended as an example to show how a clinical anomaly, where the performance at delivery is better that at discharge, would be shown using the Splat.
The scores at delivery should simply record the patient's ability when they first receive the prosthesis and before they have had any prosthetic gait re-education. The LCI Splat will then help to demonstrate achievements following rehabilitation.