Does isolated somatosensory impairment affect the balance and ambulation of patients with supratentorial stroke after the acute phase?

•We studied the effects of isolated somatosensory impairment on the balance and gait.•BBS and FAC showed significant differences among the groups according to SSEP latency.•Muscle strength of lower extremity was not significantly different among the groups.•The reference value of SSEP was determined by considering the physical indices. Balance and ambulation are the result of a multicomponent control process through the interaction of the sensory and motor information. Despite the clinical relevance of the somatosensory system, its role has not drawn much attention from clinical researchers in that motor impairment is considered a major cause of dysfunction. There is little research on how somatosensory impairment alone affects functional disability after stroke. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of isolated somatosensory deficit on the balance and ambulation ability in patients with stroke. P38 latency of the SSEP was used to evaluate the integrity of the dorsal column-medial lemniscus pathway and the SSEP reference value was derived from the formula considering individual height and age. According to the SSEP latency, subjects were classified into 'normal', 'abnormal', and 'no response' group. A total of 110 supratentorial stroke patients with at least grade 4 of the Medical Research Council scale of lower extremity on the affected side were enrolled. Berg balance scale (BBS) and functional ambulatory categories (FAC) showed significant differences among the groups (P