https://jneuroengrehab.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12984-017-0316-0
- Laura PellegrinoEmail authorView ORCID ID profile,
- Psiche Giannoni,
- Lucio Marinelli and
- Maura Casadio
Journal of NeuroEngineering and Rehabilitation201714:107
© The Author(s). 2017
Received: 24 August 2017
Accepted: 5 October 2017
Published: 16 October 2017
Abstract
Background
Postural control deficits are
common in stroke survivors and often the rehabilitation programs include
balance training based on visual feedback to improve the control of
body position or of the voluntary shift of body weight in space. In the
present work, a group of chronic stroke survivors, while sitting on a
force plate, exercised the ability to control their Center of Pressure
with a training based on continuous visual feedback. The goal of this
study was to test if and to what extent chronic stroke survivors were
able to learn the task and transfer the learned ability to a condition
without visual feedback and to directions and displacement amplitudes
different from those experienced during training.
Methods
Eleven chronic stroke
survivors (5 Male - 6 Female, age: 59.72 ± 12.84 years) participated in
this study. Subjects were seated on a stool positioned on top of a
custom-built force platform. Their Center of Pressure positions were
mapped to the coordinate of a cursor on a computer monitor. During
training, the cursor position was always displayed and the subjects were
to reach targets by shifting their Center of Pressure by moving their
trunk. Pre and post-training subjects were required to reach without
visual feedback of the cursor the training targets as well as other
targets positioned in different directions and displacement amplitudes.
Results
During training, most stroke
survivors were able to perform the required task and to improve their
performance in terms of duration, smoothness, and movement extent,
although not in terms of movement direction. However, when we removed
the visual feedback, most of them had no improvement with respect to
their pre-training performance.
Conclusions
This study suggests that
postural training based exclusively on continuous visual feedback can
provide limited benefits for stroke survivors, if administered alone.
However, the positive gains observed during training justify the
integration of this technology-based protocol in a well-structured and
personalized physiotherapy training, where the combination of the two
approaches may lead to functional recovery.
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