From Notion to Motion – Retraining the Brain in Stroke Victims to Promote Stroke Recovery

May 18th, 2010

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Regaining Mobility Following a Stroke

Similar research at the University of Genoa has also shown positive results. There, researchers used the robotic assistant to ensure that patients performing movement exercises with a partially paralyzed arm were performing the movements in a natural way. As a physiotherapy assistant that never becomes tired, such movement-assisting robots can be invaluable.

Besides improving arm function, other aspects of improving mobility are as simple as the use of ankle splints. In reviews of 14 previous studies, researchers at the University of Salford found that ankle splints could often compensate for weakened lower leg strength and some balance issues to allow a stroke victim to become active more easily.

Regaining Balance Following A Stroke

Also regarding balance, research from the University of Illinois found that the slow moving martial art of Tai Chi enabled stroke victims to regain balance control. The researchers observed that after only 6 weeks of Tai Chi in 3 one-hour sessions per week, stroke victims were much more able to retain their balance. The restoration of balance is important because falling is always a serious risk for those who have had a stroke.

Conclusions

Once thought to be a cause of permanent disability, strokes are now seen as a condition from which some recovery is often possible. Stroke rehabilitation can retrain the brain to partially compensate for lost abilities.

As well, in research conducted by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, researchers observed that useful levels of muscle control could be regained even years after a stroke. This finding is important because it indicates that stroke victims can often regain some quality of life even if they did little immediately following the stroke. Put simply some level of stroke recovery is always possible.

This also means that with the right assistance, some of the 6 million stroke victims in the US could regain some movement thought lost forever. While this news is by no means something to cause dancing in the streets, changing a prognosis from one of no recovery to limited recovery is significant for those who have suffered a stroke.