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.

Thursday, June 13, 2013

Action-Observation In Stroke Rehabilitation

Does it take multiple publishings before the stroke world sits up and takes notice of research?
From Jan. 2012 is this published research.  That should have been enough time for all therapy departments to have dozens of videos  for their stroke patients.
Clinical Relevance of Action Observation in Upper-Limb Stroke Rehabilitation: A Possible Role in Recovery of Functional Dexterity. A Randomized Clinical Trial
The latest one here;
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/261826.php
A new study finds that stroke patients' brains show strong cortical motor activity when observing others performing physical tasks - a finding that offers new insight into stroke rehabilitation.

Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), a team of researchers from USC monitored the brains of 24 individuals - 12 who had suffered strokes and 12 age-matched people who had not - as they watched others performing actions made using the arm and hand that would be difficult for a person who can no longer use their arm due to stroke - actions like lifting a pencil or flipping a card.

The researchers found that while the typical brain responded to the visual stimulus with activity in cortical motor regions that are generally activated when we watch others perform actions, in the stroke-affected brain, activity was strongest in these regions of the damaged hemisphere, and strongest when stroke patients viewed actions they would have the most difficulty performing.

Activating regions near the damaged portion of the brain is like exercising it, building strength that can help it recover to a degree.

"Watching others perform physical tasks leads to activations in motor areas of the damaged hemisphere of the brain after stroke, which is exactly what we're trying to do in therapy," said Kathleen Garrison, lead author of a paper on the research. "If we can help drive plasticity in these brain regions, we may be able to help individuals with stroke recover more of the ability to move their arm and hand."

Garrison, who completed this research while studying at USC and is currently a post-doctoral researcher at the Yale University School of Medicine, worked with Lisa Aziz-Zadeh of the USC Brain and Creativity Institute and the Division of Occupational Science and Occupational Therapy; Carolee Winstein, director of the Motor Behavior and Neurorehabilitation Laboratory in the Division of Biokinesiology and Physical Therapy at USC; and former USC doctoral student Sook-Lei Liew and postdoctoral researcher Savio Wong.

Their research was posted online ahead of publication by the journal Stroke.

Using action-observation in stroke rehabilitation has shown promise in early studies, and this study is among the first to explain why it may be effective.

"It's like you're priming the pump," Winstein said. "You're getting these circuits engaged through the action-observation before they even attempt to move." The process is a kind of virtual exercise program for the brain that prepares you for the real exercise that includes the brain and body.

The study also offers support for expanding action-observation as a therapeutic technique - particularly for individuals who have been screened using fMRI and have shown a strong response to it.

"We could make videos of what patients will be doing in therapy, and then have them watch it as homework," Aziz-Zadeh said. "In some cases, it could pave the way for them to do better."

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