Deans' stroke musings: Systematic review of the effectiveness of pharmacological interventions in the treatment of spasticity of the hemiparetic lower extremity more than six months post 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.

Friday, May 17, 2013

Systematic review of the effectiveness of pharmacological interventions in the treatment of spasticity of the hemiparetic lower extremity more than six months post stroke

Demand your doctor get this and let you read it. I bet nothing has worked for your spasticity yet so you better find out if anything works. The abstract looks pretty hopeless.
http://search.naric.com/research/rehab/redesign_record.cfm?search=2&type=all&criteria=J65519&phrase=no&rec=120915
NARIC Accession Number: J65519. What's this?
ISSN: 1074-9357.
Author(s): McIntyre, Amanda; Lee, Taeweon; Janzen, Shannon; Mays, Rachel; Mehta, Swati; Teasell, Robert.
Publication Year: 2012.
Number of Pages: 12.
Abstract: Study examined the effectiveness of pharmacological interventions in reducing spasticity of the lower limb in chronic stroke survivors. PubMed, CINAHL, and EMBASE were searched for randomized controlled trials (RCTs) in which patients who were at least 6 months post stroke received a pharmacological intervention aimed at treating lower-limb spasticity. Methodological quality of each study was assessed using the Physiotherapy Evidence Database (PEDro) tool. Nine RCTs (PEDro scores, 4 to 9) met the inclusion criteria and included a pooled sample size of 605 individuals with a mean age of 54.8 years. Four RCTs provided evidence that botulinum toxin type A was effective in reducing spasticity compared to participants receiving placebo or a phenol neurolytic. One study provided evidence that both alcohol and phenol neurolytics were effective in reducing spasticity. Finally, 4 studies provided evidence that oral and intrathecal medications were effective in reducing lower-limb spasticity compared to placebo. Findings indicated that pharmacological treatment initiated 6 months post stroke reduced lower-limb spasticity. Relevant areas of exploration for future research could include the period of effectiveness, long-term complications, and a cost-benefit analysis of such treatments.