Deans' stroke musings: Effect of gravity on robot-assisted motor training after chronic stroke: A randomized trial

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, February 11, 2012

Effect of gravity on robot-assisted motor training after chronic stroke: A randomized trial

I couldn't tell what this was saying, although I do know if I don't have to hold my arm up I can move it.
http://www.naric.com/research/rehab/record.cfm?search=2&type=all&criteria=J62298&phrase=no&rec=117014
NARIC Accession Number: J62298. What's this?
ISSN: 0003-9993.
Author(s): Conroy, Susan S.; Whitall, Jill; Dipietro, Laura; Jones-Lush, Lauren M.; Zhan, Min; Finley, Margaret A.; Wittenberg, George D.; Krebs, Hermano I.; Bever, Christopher T..
Publication Year: 2011.
Number of Pages: 8.
Abstract: Study determined the efficacy of 2 distinct robot-assisted reaching programs compared with an intensive conventional arm exercise program (ICAE) for chronic, stroke-related upper-extremity (UE) impairment. Sixty-two adults with chronic, stroke-related arm weakness were stratified by impairment severity using baseline UE motor assessments. Participants were randomly assigned to 60 minutes, 3 times a week for 6 weeks of either robot-assisted planar reaching (gravity compensated), planar combined with vertical robot-assisted reaching, or an ICAE program. Clinical and robot outcome testing was performed at baseline, midpoint, final, and at 12-week follow-up. The primary outcome was the mean change in the UE portion of the Fugl-Meyer Assessment (FMA) from baseline to final training. All groups showed modest gains in the FMA from baseline to final with no significant between group differences. The greatest change occurred in the planar robot group. Participants with greater motor impairment demonstrated a larger difference in response for planar robot-assisted exercise compared with the ICAE program. The results suggest that chronic UE deficits because of stroke are responsive to intensive motor task training. However, training outside the horizontal plane in a gravity-present environment using a combination of vertical with planar robots was not superior to training with the planar robot alone.
Descriptor Terms: LIMBS, MOTOR SKILLS, REHABILITATION TECHNOLOGY, ROBOTICS, STROKE, THERAPEUTIC TRAINING.