Deans' stroke musings: The efficacy of traditional Thai massage in decreasing spasticity in elderly stroke patients

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.

Wednesday, August 27, 2014

The efficacy of traditional Thai massage in decreasing spasticity in elderly stroke patients

The fact that this doesn't work would be for the same reason that stretching doesn't work as explained by Peter Levine here, here and here. Any improvements would probably be due to spontaneous recovery anyway.

http://www.dovepress.com/the-efficacy-of-traditional-thai-massage-in-decreasing-spasticity-in-e-peer-reviewed-article-CIA

Authors Thanakiatpinyo T, Suwannatrai S, Suwannatrai U, Khumkaew P, Wiwattamongkol D, Vannabhum M, Pianmanakit S, Kuptniratsaikul V
Published Date August 2014 Volume 2014:9 Pages 1311—1319
DOI http://dx.doi.org/10.2147/CIA.S66416
Received 22 April 2014, Accepted 4 June 2014, Published 11 August 2014

Thanitta Thanakiatpinyo,¹ Supakij Suwannatrai,² Ueamphon Suwannatrai,² Phanitanong Khumkaew,² Dokmai Wiwattamongkol,²Manmas Vannabhum,² Somluck Pianmanakit,¹ Vilai Kuptniratsaikul¹

¹Department of Rehabilitation Medicine, ²Center of Applied Thai Traditional Medicine, Faculty of Medicine Siriraj Hospital, Mahidol University, Bangkok, Thailand

Purpose: To study the efficacy of traditional Thai massage (TTM) versus conventional physical therapy (PT) programs in treating muscle spasticity, functional ability, anxiety, depression, and quality of life (QoL) in Thai stroke patients.
Methods: This randomized controlled trial with a blinded assessor was carried out at the Department of Rehabilitation Medicine, Siriraj Hospital (Bangkok, Thailand). The study included 50 stroke (onset ≥3 months) outpatients experiencing spasticity at the elbow or knee muscles at a grade of ≥1+ on the modified Ashworth Scale who were ≥50 years old and able to communicate. The subjects were randomly allocated to the treatment group receiving TTM (24 subjects) or the control group receiving the PT program (26 subjects). Both groups received treatment (either TTM or PT) twice a week for 6 weeks. Spasticity grade, functional ability, anxiety, depression, and QoL were measured at Week 0 and Week 6.
Results: At Week 6, the percentage of patients whose modified Ashworth Scale score had decreased by at least one grade was not statistically significant between the two groups. Both TTM and PT groups experienced a significant increase in functional ability and QoL, but no difference was found between the groups. Anxiety and depression scores showed a decreasing trend in the TTM group.
Conclusion: This preliminary report showed no evidence that TTM differed from the PT program in decreasing spasticity. However, both interventions may relieve spasticity, increase functional ability, and improve QoL after 6 weeks. Only TTM can decrease anxiety and depression scores. Further studies with adequate sample size are necessary.