Changing stroke rehab and research worldwide now.Time is Brain! trillions and trillions of neurons that DIE each day because there are NO effective hyperacute therapies besides tPA(only 12% effective). I have 523 posts on hyperacute therapy, enough for researchers to spend decades proving them out. These are my personal ideas and blog on stroke rehabilitation and stroke research. Do not attempt any of these without checking with your medical provider. Unless you join me in agitating, when you need these therapies they won't be there.

What this blog is for:

My blog is not to help survivors recover, it is to have the 10 million yearly stroke survivors light fires underneath their doctors, stroke hospitals and stroke researchers to get stroke solved. 100% recovery. The stroke medical world is completely failing at that goal, they don't even have it as a goal. Shortly after getting out of the hospital and getting NO information on the process or protocols of stroke rehabilitation and recovery I started searching on the internet and found that no other survivor received useful information. This is an attempt to cover all stroke rehabilitation information that should be readily available to survivors so they can talk with informed knowledge to their medical staff. It lays out what needs to be done to get stroke survivors closer to 100% recovery. It's quite disgusting that this information is not available from every stroke association and doctors group.

Wednesday, February 9, 2011

Vibration and stroke rehab

Two different whole body vibration tests came to different conclusions
1. http://stroke.ahajournals.org/cgi/content/full/37/9/2331
Long-Term Effects of 6-Week Whole-Body Vibration on Balance Recovery and Activities of Daily Living in the Postacute Phase of Stroke
Conclusions— Daily sessions of whole-body vibration during 6 weeks are not more effective in terms of recovery of balance and activities of daily living than the same amount of exercise therapy on music in the postacute phase of stroke.
2. http://www.mywholebodyvibration.com/2010/03/04/whole-body-vibration-shown-to-benefit-stroke-recovery/
These results suggest that one session of whole body vibration can quickly increase voluntary force and muscle activation of the quadriceps muscle affected by a stroke. One session of whole body vibration (20 Hz frequency, 5mm amplitude) was shown to quickly increase isometric and eccentric strength of knee extensors at the affected side. Whole body vibration may help to increase the effectiveness of an additional functional rehabilitation program.

And this article on the use of it in the gym wonders about its effectiveness.Gimmick or Not, Vibrating Platforms Have Joined the Gym
But maybe it’s not so silly, exercise physiologists say. Although they don’t really know why vibrations should work, researchers report that they actually seem to slightly improve performance in the few minutes after a person gets off the machine.
The problem, though, is that there is little consensus on how fast the vibrations should be or in what direction platforms are supposed to vibrate. Some studies have failed to show any effects from vibrations. And then there is the question of what exactly vibrations are doing to muscles and nerves.
“It certainly is intriguing, and a large portion of the evidence would support that something is happening,” said Lee E. Brown, director of the Center for Sports Performance at California State University, Fullerton. But he added, “We are still trying to figure out exactly what the mechanism is.”

I know the first one failed but I think that if you are trying to get back proprioception this might be useful. I looked for gyms around here having this but no luck.
Four other possibilities:
1. Body Blades - I bought these but in order to get the vibration you need to be able to rapidly move your arm back and forth in a small arc. I currently only have gross movement so this didn't work.
2. Shake Weights - I tried this at a retailer and it has the same problems as the body blade.
3. Dynaflex Sports Pro Plus Gyro Wrist Exerciser - I bought this but it really does require two good hands to get the internal gyroscope spinning. For me I was looking for it to get proprioception going and the intrinsics of the hand.
4. Palm hand sanders. The random orbital kind. Mine is currently broken but I'll try it as soon as I get it fixed.

Remember, this is not something you should try without talking to your doctors.

3 comments:

  1. Very interesting, Dean. I bet there's something out there but where I don't know. I'm wondering if one of the teaching hospitals would know something.

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  2. I did email Harvard medical school asking if they could point me to the required textbooks for neurology courses, but no luck on getting an answer. A beginning neurology course at the Univ of Minnesota had this book at a textbook.
    The brain that changes itself : stories of personal triumph from the frontiers of brain science / Norman Doidge. And since I already read that I guess I am good to go.

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  3. It would be interesting to read more about this research. I will have to scour the internet to see if any more has been done in the last few years. I just have trouble grasping how it would have a continued long-term effect on improvement.

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