Deans' stroke musings: Portable Neurorobotics for the Severely Affected Arm in Chronic Stroke: A Case 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.

Saturday, January 28, 2012

Portable Neurorobotics for the Severely Affected Arm in Chronic Stroke: A Case Study

A chronic case study, I may need to see if my health insurance will cover this when I get employed again. Pictures at the lower url.
http://journals.lww.com/jnpt/Abstract/2011/03000/Portable_Neurorobotics_for_the_Severely_Affected.7.aspx

Abstract

Background and Purpose: Few motor therapies increase active movement in the severely impaired arm of individuals with chronic stroke. Existing robotic devices to address this need are large and expensive. This case study describes the application and reports outcomes associated with a repetitive task-specific training (RTP) program incorporating a portable robotic device. We assessed outcomes related to affected arm impairment, ability to perform valued activities, satisfaction with movement performance, and quality of life in a participant with chronic stroke exhibiting severe arm hemiparesis.

Case Description: The participant was a 53-year-old man, 30 months after hemorrhagic stroke. At the time of enrollment, he exhibited some active shoulder and elbow flexion, but no active elbow extension, and no active movement at any joint below the elbow.

Intervention: The participant engaged in RTP incorporating a portable, electromyography-triggered neurorobotic device in 1-hour sessions, 3 days/week for 8 weeks using the affected arm.

Outcomes: The upper extremity section of the Fugl-Meyer Impairment scale (FM), the Canadian Occupational Performance Measure (COPM), and the Stroke Impact Scale (SIS) were administered before and after training. After intervention, the subject exhibited reduced affected arm impairment (+2 points on the FM), increased ability to perform valued activities, increased satisfaction with performance of these activities (indicated by score increases of +2 and +1.8 points on the COPM Performance and Satisfaction scales, respectively), improved strength, performance of activities of daily living, hand function, participation, and physical function (as indicated by increases in respective SIS scores).

Discussion: The RTP incorporating the neurorobotic device appears promising. To our knowledge, this is the first study documenting a portable robotic-based RTP strategy in a person exhibiting this severity of hemiparesis.

http://www.myomo.com/myomo-solutions-mPower-1000