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, July 8, 2014

Researchers Testing Possible Benefits of Brain Stimulation in Stroke Rehab

I couldn't participate in one of these at the University of Minnesota because it required some volitional extension of the fingers. And since my motor control area for the fingers is dead this type of therapy is useless for me.  Try it you may like it.
http://healthnews.uc.edu/news/?/24831/
Researchers on the University of Cincinnati medical campus are testing the possible benefits of brain stimulation on hand and arm function for stroke recovery patients.

The clinical trial, known as NICHE (for Navigated Inhibitory rTMS to Contralesional Hemisphere), is recruiting participants who have had a stroke in the past year. It involves a combination of occupational therapy and a method of non-invasive brain stimulation called transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS). (rTMS is repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation.)

UC is one of 12 sites for the study, all in the United States. Principal investigators for the UC site are Kari Dunning, PT, PhD, an associate professor and epidemiologist in the College of Allied Health’s Department of Rehabilitation Sciences and director of the Neural Excitability, Therapeutics and Recovery (NET Recovery) lab, and Brett Kissela, MD, MS, Albert Barnes Voorheis Professor and Chair of Neurology and Rehabilitation Medicine in the College of Medicine and a member of the UC Neuroscience Institute.

"There is evidence that people who have sustained a stroke can improve arm movement following stimulation to the brain using TMS,” says Dunning. "Our aim is to test this approach and quantify the results.”

Dunning explains that TMS can reduce or increase brain activity. By using it to reduce brain activity on the uninjured side of the brain, she says, the injured side is forced to work harder and might have a better chance of recovering.

The study will use a navigated brain stimulation device manufactured by Nexstim Ltd., which is funding the trial. Dunning and Kissela report no conflicts.

Participants will be divided into two groups, one of which will receive rTMS treatment and the other receiving sham (placebo) rTMS. Both groups will receive task-oriented rehabilitation from a licensed therapist. It is a randomized, controlled, double-blinded study, which means that neither participants nor investigators know which treatment is being used.

The therapy will be provided for six weeks, and primary outcomes assessed six months later.

To qualify, participants must be 18 or older, have had their stroke three to 12 months prior to enrollment in the study and have hand and arm weakness on one side of their body. Exclusion criteria include implanted devices such as pacemakers or defibrillators, pregnancy, depression and active alcohol abuse.

The therapy and treatments are free of charge. Participants will be compensated over the follow-up period.

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