Walking is the activity that stroke patients themselves think most important. One of the variables often used to describe gait performance after stoke is gait speed because it is well correlated with other measures of performance such as appearance, distance and independence, And it tends to match with functional outcome of stoke. So, we investigated gait speed in 30 stoke patients and 21 normal age matched controls during gait with comfortable and maximum safe gait speeds, And the results are as follows.

1)Stoke patients walked slowly compared with controls(p<0.01) and comfortable gait speed was slower than maximum safe gait speed in each group(p<0.01)

2) In stoke patients, linear ragression equation describing relationship between comfortable and maximum safe gait speed was maximum safe gait speed=0.633+1.375⁓comfortable gait speed.

3) In stoke patients, gait speed was well correlated with Brunnstrom stage, social performance level and preservation of deep sense(position and vibration senses).

4) In stroke patients, 8 patients with ankle foot orthosis walked faster, especially in comfortable gait speed, then the patients without short leg brace(p<0.05).

Above results showed that stoke patients were able to increase their walking speed significantly above the level they found comfortable. And the correlation between comfortable and maximum safe gait speeds indicated that the maximum safe gait speed could be predicted by comfortable gait speed with considerable accurary.