Deans' stroke musings: Cyclic Movement Training versus Conventional Physiotherapy for Rehabilitation of Hemiparetic Gait after Stroke: A Pilot Study

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.

Monday, June 13, 2011

Cyclic Movement Training versus Conventional Physiotherapy for Rehabilitation of Hemiparetic Gait after Stroke: A Pilot Study

This would be a great improvement because I would be willing to bet that getting one of these would be much easier than one of the body-weight supported training. I think this refers to NuStep and similar.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21656459

[Article in German]

Podubecka J, Scheer S, Theilig S, Wiederer R, Oberhoffer R, Nowak DA.

Source

Neurologische Fachklinik, Klinik Kipfenberg.

Abstract

BACKGROUND:

Recovery of impaired motor functions following stroke is commonly incomplete in spite of intensive rehabilitation programmes. At 6 months following a stroke up to 60 % of affected individuals still suffer from permanent motor deficits, in particular hemiparetic gait, that are relevant for daily life. Novel innovative therapeutic strategies are needed to enhance the recovery of impaired gait function following stroke.

METHOD:

This pilot study has investigated the effectiveness of conventional physiotherapy in comparison to an apparative cyclic movement training over a period of 4 weeks to improve (i) power during a submaximal cyclic movement training of the lower limbs, (ii) cardiac fitness, (iii) balance and gait ability, and (iv) quality of life in stroke patients.

RESULTS:

In comparison to physiotherapy apparative cyclic movement training improved power, balance, cardiac fitness and quality of life to a greater extent. However, there was a statistically significant difference between both intervention groups only for balance but not for the other parameters assessed.

CONCLUSION:

The present pilot study should inspire future research with larger patient cohorts to allow appropriate judgement on the effectiveness of apparative cyclic movement training in stroke rehabilitation.