Mental practice-based rehabilitation training to improve arm function and daily activity performance in stroke patients: a randomized clinical trial

Abstract

Background: Over 50% of patients with upper limb paresis resulting from stroke face long-term impaired arm function and ensuing disability in daily life. Unfortunately, the number of effective treatments aimed at improving arm function due to stroke is still low. This study aims to evaluate a new therapy for improving arm function in sub-acute stroke patients based on mental practice theories and functional task-oriented training, and to study the predictors for a positive treatment result. It is hypothesized that a six-week, mental practice-based training program (additional to regular therapy) targeting the specific upper extremity skills important to the individual patient will significantly improve both arm function and daily activity performance, as well as being cost effective.

Motor Imagery and Stroke Neurorehabilitation: An Overview of Basic Concepts and Therapeutic Effects

“…Task familiriaty: Task familiarity is a prerequisite for the successful use of MI (Verbunt et al, 2008). Mulder (2007) observed that after MI individuals who had previously mastered a new motor task improved substantially compared to individuals with no previous practice.…”

“…Types of motor imagery: MI can be classified as kinesthetic and visual (Verbunt et al, 2008). Kinesthetic MI is performed in first person, which performer approximates a real life situation in such a way that the person actually experiences the sensory sensations), providing the feeling of movements as if they were really performed.…”

Treinabilidade da capacidade de imaginação em indivíduos pós acidente vascular encefálico

“…Alguns estudos (HAMEL;LAJOIE, 2005;MALOUIN et al, 2004;VERBUNT et al, 2008;BRAUN et al, 2007;LIU et al, 2009) têm demonstrado que a imaginação pode ser utilizada para melhorar o desempenho motor funcional de indivíduos pós-Acidente Vascular Encefálico (AVE), principalmente quando associada à prática física, uma vez que as imagens mentais do movimento podem ser geradas independentemente da movimentação ativa do membro plégico ou parético (JACKSON et al, 2001).…”

Functional Recovery of Upper Limb Post-Stroke: Mental Practice with Motor and Non-Motor Imagery

“…Nevertheless, many questions remain unclear such as the functional recovery of non-trained tasks (Dijkerman et al, 2004;Vries and Mulder, 2006), age, lesion site, cognitive functioning, treatment duration (how many days per week and how many weeks), duration of each session, the modality of MI and the time since onset of motor impairment (acute, subacute or chronic) (Verbunt et al, 2008).…”