Deans' stroke musings: Changes in passive ankle stiffness and its effects on gait function in people with chronic 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.

Thursday, December 12, 2013

Changes in passive ankle stiffness and its effects on gait function in people with chronic stroke

Your therapist can probably use this to prevent it being a problem before you get to the chronic phase.
http://search.naric.com/research/rehab/redesign_record.cfm?search=2&type=all&criteria=J67079&phrase=no&rec=122844
Journal of Rehabilitation Research and Development (JRRD) (formerly the Bulletin of Prosthetics Research) , Volume 50(4) , Pgs. 555-572.

NARIC Accession Number: J67079. What's this?
ISSN: 0748-7711.
Author(s): Roy, Anindo; Forrester, Larry W.; Macko, Richard F.; Krebs, Hermano I..
Publication Year: 2013.
Number of Pages: 18.
Abstract: Study investigated the effects of robot-assisted ankle training on the paretic passive ankle stiffness (PAS) and its relationship to overground gait function in people with chronic stroke. Over a 6-week period, eight participants with residual hemiparetic deficits engaged in a visuomotor task while seated that required dorsiflexion (DF) or plantar flexion (PF) of their paretic ankle, with an ankle robot assisting as needed. PAS was measured in both the trained sagittal and untrained frontal planes. After 6 weeks, the PAS decreased in both DF and PF and reverted into the variability of age-matched controls in DF. Changes in PF PAS correlated strongly with gains in paretic step lengths and paretic stride lengths during independent floor walking. Moreover, baseline PF PAS were correlated with gains in paretic step lengths, paretic stride lengths, and single-support stance duration; and baseline eversion PAS were correlated with gains in cadence. Findings suggest that ankle robot-assisted, visuomotor-based, isolated ankle training has a positive effect on paretic ankle PAS that strongly influences key measures of gait function.
Descriptor Terms: AMBULATION, HEMIPLEGIA, JOINTS, MOBILITY TRAINING, MOTOR SKILLS, ROBOTICS, STROKE, THERAPEUTIC TRAINING.

Can this document be ordered through NARIC's document delivery service*?: Y.