BACKGROUND: During the last years treadmill therapy has been ncreasingly applied in gait rehabilitation. However, up to now it has not yet been sufficiently investigated which treadmill speed is necessary in order to achieve an optimal improvement of the gait pattern. OBJECTIVE: This pilot study was to explore whether treadmill therapy with maximum gait speed and rest periods is more effective in view of gait rehabilitation than a slow uninterrupted therapy. METHOD: 6 hemiparetic patients were subjected to a standardised examining and a quantitative gait analysis. Randomised into 2 groups they received low and high speed treadmill therapy. The results were compared with those of 6 unaffected control subjects. RESULTS: All patients improved significantly during the 3 weeks' therapy (p < 0.05). Evaluation by means of qualitative and quantitative techniques tends to reveal a symmetric gait pattern of the low speed group. As to gait quality, every day competence, preferred and maximum gait speed as well as position of the centre of gravity patients with slow uninterrupted treadmill therapy achieved a higher convergence to the control group results. The high speed group came more in line with the control subjects' standards only in view of vertical pelvic movement. The results indicate that a slow uninterrupted treadmill therapy appears to be more effective for severely affected patients who prefer gait speed less than 0.55m/s. In contrary, patients who favour high gait speed may rather benefit from faster therapy.

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