Deans' stroke musings: Does Poststroke Lower-Limb Spasticity Influence the Recovery of Standing Balance Control? A 2-Year Multilevel Growth Model

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 12, 2016

Does Poststroke Lower-Limb Spasticity Influence the Recovery of Standing Balance Control? A 2-Year Multilevel Growth Model

Pretty much useless research since it gives no solutions on how to reduce spasticity to have better balance. A great stroke association president would be contacting these researchers to get useful solutions from each research trial rather than just posing a question and leaving the survivor hanging with no solution in sight.
http://nnr.sagepub.com/content/30/7/626?etoc

¹University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, MB, Canada
²University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada
³Heart and Stroke Foundation Canadian Partnership for Stroke Recovery, Toronto, ON, Canada
⁴Sunnybrook Research Institute, Toronto, ON, Canada

Jonathan C. Singer, PhD, Faculty of Kinesiology and Recreation Management, University of Manitoba, 310 Max Bell Centre, Winnipeg, MB R3T 2N2, Canada. Email: jonathan.singer@umanitoba.ca

Abstract

Background. Poststroke lower-limb spasticity (LLS) has been shown to degrade standing balance control by disrupting the temporal synchronization between individual limb centers of pressure (COPs). Time-varying changes in standing balance control associated with alterations in the extent of LLS have yet to be documented and are important to informing treatment strategies to improve such functional outcomes.

Objective. The present work aimed to understand the natural recovery of standing balance control among stroke survivors with LLS using limb-specific indices of standing balance control. Furthermore, we sought to understand if time-varying changes in LLS were associated with alterations in standing balance control.

Methods. A retrospective analysis of 92 participants was performed; 47 participants never exhibited LLS during the study (No_LLS), and 45 participants exhibited LLS during at least 1 testing session (LLS). Quiet standing for a duration of 30 s on 2 force platforms was recorded. Temporal synchrony and spatial symmetry of COP displacements were assessed, along with interlimb weight-bearing symmetry.

Results. All variables, except spatial symmetry, indicated initial improvement followed by deceleration in the rate of balance control recovery. Limb-specific measures indicated that individuals with LLS exhibited deficits in balance control. The recovery trajectories were not different between groups, suggesting a similar rate, but reduced extent, of balance control recovery among the LLS relative to the No_LLS group. Only temporal synchrony was altered by time-varying changes in spasticity.

Conclusions. The present results suggest that the reduction in spasticity may be beneficial to balance control recovery.