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, January 4, 2012

Neurofeedback and stroke

I found this commercial site and decided to find more independent research.
This site lists Stroke as one of the treatment modalities but no research backing it up. But the generated waves look cool. I can't figure out how he would determine what brain waves would need to be generated for motor movement or aphasia. And would a different brain wave be needed for each finger movement?
Good sales pitch but I don't trust any of it.
http://www.braincoretherapy.com/
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Effect of Neurofeedback on Motor Recovery of a Patient with Brain Injury: A Case Study and Its Implications for Stroke Rehabilitation


http://thomasland.metapress.com/content/4g2f5plvrnm9bggn/

Abstract
This case study showed the effect of neurofeedback (NFB) training in a patient with a brain tumor and co-existing traumatic brain injury. The patient received 40 sessions of NFB intervention. Tests and videotaped recordings evaluated pre- and post-NFB intervention. This study demonstrated minimal to significant improvements in several functional tasks. The conclusion is that the use of NFB for a person with a head injury and brain tumor can be generalized to be used with stroke survivors.
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Using motor imagery based brain-computer interface for post-stroke rehabilitation

http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/freeabs_all.jsp?arnumber=5109282

Abstract


There is now sufficient evidence that using a rehabilitation protocol involving motor imagery (MI) practice (or mental practice (MP)) in conjunction with physical practice (PP) of goal-directed rehabilitation tasks leads to enhanced functional recovery of paralyzed limbs among stroke sufferers. It is however difficult to ensure patient engagement during MP in the absence of any on-line measure of the MP. Fortunately in an EEG-based brain-computer interface (BCI), an on-line measure of MI activity is used to devise neurofeedback for the BCI user to help him/her focus better on the task. This paper reports a pilot study in which an EEG-based BCI system is used to provide neurofeedback to stroke participants during the MP part of the rehabilitation protocol. This helps patients to undertake the MP with stronger focus. The participants included five chronic stroke sufferers. The trial was undertaken for 12 sessions over a period of 6 weeks. A set of rehabilitation outcome measures including action research arm test (ARAT) and motricity index was made use of in assessing functional recovery. Moderate improvements approaching a minimal clinically important difference (MCID) were observed for the ARAT. Small positive improvements were also observed in other outcome measures. Participants appeared highly enthusiastic about participating in the study and regularly attended all the sessions. Although without a randomized control trial, it is difficult to ascertain whether the enhanced rehabilitation gain is primarily because of BCI neurofeedack, the positive gains in outcome measures demonstrate the potential and feasibility of using BCI for post-stroke rehabilitation.
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Neurofeedback Training for a Patient with Thalamic and Cortical Infarctions

http://www.springerlink.com/content/u8225r95315230kt/

Abstract

One year after a left posterior and thalamic stroke, a 52-year-old male participant was treated with 14 weeks of theta reduction neurofeedback training. Imaging studies revealed left temporal, parietal, occipital, and bilateral thalamic infarctions along the distribution of the posterior cerebral artery. Neuropsychological testing demonstrated severe verbal memory, naming, visual tracking, and fine motor deficits. Additionally, alexia without agraphia was present. A pretraining quantitative electroencephalograph (QEEG) found alpha attenuation, lack of alpha reactivity to eye opening, and excessive theta activity from the left posterior head region. Neurofeedback training to inhibit 4–8 Hz theta activity was conducted for 42 sessions from left hemisphere sites. Over the course of the training, significant reductions in theta amplitude occurred from the training sites as assessed from the postsession baseline periods. Posttraining, a relative normalization of the QEEG was observed from the left posterior head region.


I do wonder if there is any difference in biofeedback and neurofeedback.

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