Clinicians’ Perspectives on Cross-Education in Stroke Rehabilitation

This is exercising the good side to improve the bad side. A great thesis supporting earlier research on this, but still no one is writing up a stroke protocol that stroke survivors can point to to get their therapists to use on them. The existing paradigm of having therapies come from therapists and doctors is a total failure, they do not keep up with research. A bottom up approach of distributing stroke rehab information would be much more effective and a database of stroke research and protocols from a great stroke association is the way to do this.. This is only 72 pages long for your perusal.
https://era.library.ualberta.ca/files/cn870zr07r/Russell_William_H_201608_MSc.pdf

Results:

Cross-education is antithetical yet promising was the lone theme which was reiterated in every data collection session. The primary theme was captured in

3 descriptive categories. The therapists described working in a (1) forced-use paradigm, yet they also described how that paradigm did not meet the needs of all of their patients. They recognized this as a (2) gap in current practice. They also hypothesized that (3) cross-education used as an adjunct could be quite effective within their current practice for specific patients. The primary theme weaves between the 3 categories.

Conclusions: Therapists perceived that cross-education would be most appropriate for patients with a severely impaired upper extremity. They suggested that educational materials for clinicians, patients, and patient families would be essential to the success of cross-education in order to explain training the less affected limb. This study provides important foundational information about clinician perspectives that will help transition cross-education into clinical stroke rehabilitation research and eventually practice.