Write up a f*cking stroke protocol so every survivor can benefit from this knowledge and then give it to all the stroke associations to pass out to every neurologist, PMR doctor and therapist in the world. I started writing about action observation in May, 2011 and mental imagery in October, 2010.
Damn it all, what is taking so f*cking long to get useful information out to all survivors. It is almost as if we should bypass our stroke medical team completely if they are that damned incompetent.
http://www.healthcanal.com/alternative-therapies/58648-new-psychology-research-supporting-stroke-rehabilitation.html
Using world-leading research methods, the team of Dr David Wright and
Prof Paul Holmes, working with Dr Jacqueline Williams from the Victoria
University in Melbourne, believe they have found a way psychology can
help speed up stroke patients’ rehabilitation.
The team studied
activity in an area of the brain responsible for controlling movements
when healthy participants observed a video showing simple hand movements
and simultaneously imagined that they were performing the observed
movement.
Using transcranial magnetic stimulation – a technique
where a coil placed over the scalp delivers a stimulation to the brain,
activates neurons in the underlying area, and causes a muscular
contraction in the participant’s hand – the researchers found that
combining imagery (imagining the feelings associated with performing the
movement) with observation (watching the movement) created the
strongest activity in the brain.
Using electrodes on the
participant’s hand, the researchers found that muscle contractions in
response to the stimulation were larger when participants were
concurrently imagining themselves moving their muscle whilst watching a
video of a hand moving on screen, compared to when they used the imagery
or observation techniques alone. or engaged in various control
conditions.
This research, which is published in the
open-access journal Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, may provide useful
applications for the care of stroke patients who have restricted use of
their upper limbs. If stroke patients practice the recommended
techniques, it could potentially help maintain activity in
movement-related brain areas, especially when used alongside more
traditional physiotherapy techniques where the same movements are also
practiced physically.
Dr Wright said: “The idea is that because
imagery and observation techniques share some characteristics with
physical movement in terms of activating similar areas of the brain, if
someone can’t perform the movements themselves physically, it might be
possible to keep those areas of the brain active through imagery and
observation techniques. This might help contribute to the recovery of
motor function.”
Currently, imagery and, less frequently,
observation are used separately alongside physical therapy during the
rehabilitation of stroke patients, but Prof Holmes suggested that
combining the two techniques may support re-learning of movement
patterns for some patients.
He said: “After a stroke, parts of
the brain die and will not recover. To compensate, other parts of brain
can alter their function to take control of the lost behaviour – a form
of brain plasticity. We think that combining imagery and observation, in
addition to physical therapy, may allow the brain to speed up this
plastic change as well as benefitting more psychological aspects of
recovery such as movement confidence.
“The research team’s work
in this area has the potential to make a real impact on the way
physiotherapists, occupational therapists and nurses work with the
stroke community.
“These changes may happen without the
intervention – it is certainly not a miracle cure – but the combined
imagery and action observation approach should speed up the process of
relearning movements that have been lost.”
The research was
funded by Manchester Metropolitan University’s Knowledge Exchange
Innovation Fund and a Research Accelerator Grant awarded to Dr Wright
(an early career researcher in the Motor Cognition Research section of
the Centre of Health, Exercise and Active Living).
Future
research by the group will seek to establish optimal methods for
delivering these psychological interventions for stroke rehabilitation
by investigating the effects of different types of instruction given to
participants and different video presentation methods on activity in the
brain during combined imagery and observation. The team also expect to
release a stroke rehabilitation app in early 2015.
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