“…Passive observation of video clips of relevant motor actions or functions during free time, especially in the critical acute and subacute phases of stroke (Bernhardt et al, 2004), when most spontaneous biological recovery occurs (Duncan et al, 2000;Dromerick et al, 2015), may enhance motor recovery. It should be taken into consideration, however, that patients may respond differently to AO and/or MI, e.g., some poststroke patients may have difficulties engaging in MI due to cognitive impairments (Tong et al, 2017), while others may not benefit from AO if their lesions involve cortical regions that contain large aggregates of mirror neurons [i.e., the IPL and inferior frontal gyrus pars opercularis (IFGpo); for a review, see Rizzolatti et al, 2014]. Also, some poststroke patients with cognitive impairments may perceive the combination of MI+AO as being too difficult, since besides making sure that they have sufficient cognitive abilities to comprehend and carry out MI task instructions, the MI of the motor actions should be coordinated with the observed actions.…”