Immediate effects of somatosensory stimulation on hand function in patients with poststroke hemiparesis: a randomized cross-over trial.

I'm not sure why this needed to be repeated. This was written by Margaret Yekutiel in the book, Sensory Re-Education of the Hand After Stroke in 2001. Once again proving that our researchers do not know what is going on in their field. The solution to this crappy situation is to have our fucking failures of stroke associations have a database of all stroke protocols and research.  But that won't occur under the current non-leadership.
http://journals.lww.com/intjrehabilres/Abstract/publishahead/Immediate_effects_of_somatosensory_stimulation_on.99653.aspx

Sim, Sun-Mi; Oh, Duck-Won; Chon, Seung-chul

Published Ahead-of-Print

 

Abstract

This study aimed to determine the immediate effects of somatosensory stimulation on hand function in patients with poststroke hemiparesis. Eleven patients with poststroke hemiparesis participated in this study. Four types (no stimulation, vibration, and light and rough touches) of somatosensory stimulation were performed randomly for 4 days applying only one type of somatosensory stimulation each day. The box and block test (BBT), the Jebsen-Taylor hand function test (JTHFT), hand grip strength (HGS), and movement distance and peak velocity of the wrist joint during a forward-reaching task were measured. The BBT and JTHFT scores for no stimulation [BBT: median (interquartile range), 0.00 (-1.00 to 1.00) and JTHFT: 2.57 (-0.47 to 4.92)] were significantly different from those for vibration [BBT: 3.00 (2.00-5.00) and JTHFT: -16.02 (-23.06 to -4.31)], light touch [BBT: 3.00 (1.00-4.00) and JTHFT: -5.00 (-21.20 to -0.94)], and rough touch [BBT: 2.00 (1.00-4.00) and JTHFT: -6.19 (-18.22 to -3.70)]. The JTHFT score was significantly higher for vibration than that for rough touch (P<0.05). The increase in HGS was significantly greater for light touch than that for no stimulation (P<0.05) and for vibration than that for light touch (P<0.05). There were significant differences for the sagittal and coronal planes in movement distance and for the sagittal and horizontal planes in peak velocity during the forward-reaching task (P<0.05). The findings suggest that somatosensory stimulation may be advantageous to improve the hand function of patients with poststroke hemiparesis, with more favorable effects observed in vibration stimulation.