Without seeing what the objective damage diagnosis was you can't tell who this will work for. So useless. I'd be willing to try this but I have zero individual finger movement.
Pushing the Rehabilitation Boundaries:Hand Motor Impairment Can BeReduced in Chronic Stroke
Firas Mawase, PhD1,2, , Kendra Cherry-Allen, PhD2 ,
Jing Xu, PhD2, Manuel Anaya, MD2, Shintaro Uehara, PhD2,3 ,
and Pablo Celnik, MD2
Abstract
Background. Stroke is one of the most common causes of physical disability worldwide. The majority of survivors experience
impairment of movement, often with lasting deficits affecting hand dexterity. To date, conventional rehabilitation primarily
focuses on training compensatory maneuvers emphasizing goal completion rather than targeting reduction of motor
impairment.
Objective.
We aim to determine whether finger dexterity impairment can be reduced in chronic stroke when
training on a task focused on moving fingers against abnormal synergies without allowing for compensatory maneuvers.
Methods.
We recruited 18 chronic stroke patients with significant hand motor impairment. First, participants underwent
baseline assessments of hand function, impairment, and finger individuation. Then, participants trained for 5 consecutive
days, 3 to 4 h/d, on a multifinger piano-chord-like task that cannot be performed by compensatory actions of other body
parts (e.g., arm). Participants had to learn to simultaneously coordinate and synchronize multiple fingers to break unwanted
flexor synergies. To test generalization, we assessed performance in trained and nontrained chords and clinical measures
in both the paretic and the nonparetic hands. To evaluate retention, we repeated the assessments 1 day, 1 week, and 6
months post-training.
Results.
Our results showed that finger impairment assessed by the individuation task was reduced
after training. The reduction of impairment was accompanied by improvements in clinical hand function, including precision
pinch. Notably, the effects were maintained for 6 months following training.
Conclusion.
Our findings provide preliminary
evidence that chronic stroke patient can reduce hand impairment when training against abnormal flexor synergies, a change
that was associated with meaningful clinical benefits.
No comments:
Post a Comment