Deans' stroke musings: Relationship between arm usage and instrumental activities of daily living after unilateral stroke

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.

Tuesday, February 12, 2013

Relationship between arm usage and instrumental activities of daily living after unilateral stroke

I don't know what this means but your doctor/therapist will.
http://search.naric.com/research/rehab/redesign_record.cfm?search=2&type=all&criteria=J64922&phrase=no&rec=120156
Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation , Volume 93(11) , Pgs. 1957-1962.

NARIC Accession Number: J64922. What's this?
ISSN: 0003-9993.
Author(s): Haaland, Kathleen Y.; Mutha, Pratik K.; Rinehart, Jenny K.; Daniels, Melissa; Cushnyr, Brad; Adair, John C..
Publication Year: 2012.
Number of Pages: 6.
Abstract: Study investigated whether the preferred pattern of arm use after unilateral hemispheric damage was associated with better functional performance on everyday tasks. A previous study showed that right-handed stroke patients with right hemisphere damage (RHD) used their right, ipsilesional arm most frequently, while those with left hemisphere damage (LHD) used both arms together most frequently. This effect was explained by right-hand preference, but its relationship to functional performance is not known. In this study, the Functional Impact Assessment was used to assess performance on instrumental activities of daily living (IADLs) in 60 patients (30 RHD and 30 LHD) and 52 healthy controls. Results showed that the preferred patterns of arm use were similar to those in the previous study. However, it was the greater use of both arms together that was associated with better IADL performance in both stroke groups. Ipsilesional arm use alone was not significantly associated with IADL performance in the RHD group and was associated with poorer performance in the LHD group. An important practical question that arises from these findings is whether bilateral arm rehabilitation should be emphasized, because using both arms together is the best predictor of better performance on everyday tasks.