Deans' stroke musings: Optimizing muscle power after stroke: a cross-sectional 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.

Friday, September 28, 2012

Optimizing muscle power after stroke: a cross-sectional study

Ask your therapist and doctor to use this in your therapy protocol.
http://www.jneuroengrehab.com/content/9/1/67/abstract

Abstract (provisional)

Background

Stroke remains a leading cause of disability worldwide and results in muscle performance deficits and limitations in activity performance. Rehabilitation aims to address muscle dysfunction in an effort to improve activity and participation. While both muscle strength and power have an impact on activity performance, power has recently been acknowledged as contributing significantly to activity performance in this population. Therefore, rehabilitation efforts should include training of muscle power. However, little is known about what training parameters optimize muscle power performance in people with stroke. The purpose of this study was to investigate lower limb muscle power performance at differing loads in people with and without stroke.

Methods

A cross-sectional study design investigated muscle power performance in 58 hemiplegic and age matched control participants. Lower limb muscle power was measured using a modified leg press machine at 30, 50 and 70% of one repetition maximum (1-RM) strength.

Results

There were significant differences in peak power between involved and uninvolved limbs of stroke participants and between uninvolved and control limbs. Peak power was greatest when pushing against a load of 30% of 1RM for involved, uninvolved and control limbs. Involved limb peak power irrespective of load (Mean:220 [PLUS-MINUS SIGN] SD:134 W) was significantly lower (p < 0.05) than the uninvolved limb (Mean:466 [PLUS-MINUS SIGN] SD:220 W). Both the involved and uninvolved limbs generated significantly lower peak power (p < 0.05) than the control limb (Mean:708 [PLUS-MINUS SIGN] SD:289 W).

Conclusions

Significant power deficits were seen in both the involved and uninvolved limbs after stroke. Maximal muscle power was produced when pushing against lighter loads. Further intervention studies are needed to determine whether training of both limbs at lighter loads (and higher velocities) are preferable to improve both power and activity performance after stroke.