This needs your doctor to extend this to little motorized motors for your fingers. Challenge them to tackle the hardest problems in stroke rehab.
http://health.usnews.com/health-news/articles/2015/02/12/motorized-stationary-bike-may-help-with-stroke-rehabilitation
Exercising on a motorized stationary bike may help boost stroke
patients' brain and motor skills recovery, a small study suggests.
The
study included 17 stroke survivors, aged 23 to 84, whose stroke
occurred six to 12 months before the start of the study. To help them
regain the use of their arms, all of the patients took part in
repetitive task therapy, such as relearning how to hold a cup or fork,
or how to dress themselves.
In
addition to this, the patients were randomly assigned to one of three
groups: exercise on a motorized stationary bike; using a stationary bike
without a motor; or no aerobic exercise at all but twice as much upper
body repetitive task therapy. All the cycling sessions lasted 45 minutes
and were done before the repetitive task therapy for their arms.
All
three groups did 24 exercise sessions over eight weeks. At the end of
that time, the patients in the motorized stationary bike group showed a
34 percent improvement in motor skills, compared with a 16 percent
improvement in the non-motorized stationary bike group and 17 percent in
the group that did extra repetitive tasks but no aerobic exercise, the
study found.
All three groups, however, showed improvements in
self-reported quality of life and depressive symptoms, but the greatest
gains were seen in the motorized stationary bike group, according to the
study.
The researchers are scheduled to present their findings
Thursday at the American Stroke Association's annual meeting in
Nashville. Findings presented at meetings are considered preliminary
until they've been published in a peer-reviewed journal.
Previous
research has shown that aerobic exercise helps the brain learn new
information, and that forced exercise on a motorized stationary bike
benefits Parkinson's disease patients.
Aerobic exercise may help enhance the brain's ability to reorganize itself and form new connections, the study authors said.
Using
a motorized stationary bike helps patients with limited mobility to
pedal and achieve and maintain the intensity of training believed
necessary to affect brain function, the researchers noted.
"Not
only are we improving motor recovery with half the amount of task
practice but we're also improving cardiovascular health, and stroke
patients often have cardiovascular (problems)," study author Susan
Linder, a physical therapist at the Cleveland Clinic, said in a stroke
association news release.
"If we can improve motor recovery and
cardiovascular health simultaneously, patients can regain lost motor
function and improve their quality of life," she added.
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