Randomized Controlled Trial of Yoga for Chronic Poststroke Hemiparesis: Motor Function, Mental Health, and Quality of Life Outcomes

Abstract

Preliminary results offer promise for yoga as an intervention to address mental health and quality of life in persons with stroke-related activity limitations. There is a need to more rigorously evaluate these yoga benefits with a larger randomized controlled trial, which, based on this preliminary trial, is feasible.

Rehabilitation Interventions for Improving Social Participation After Stroke

“…While some forms of horseback riding and yoga can be considered exercise, the one study with horseback riding utilized it mostly as an educational form of therapy, including touching different parts of the horse 23 while the one yoga study included some physical aspects and also mental imagery when the exercises were too challenging. 29 This systematic review has some limitations. There was heterogeneity in the studies, especially with variability in interventions and outcomes.…”

“…Most of the studies (18/24) assessed social participation as a primary outcome, 23,24,26,27,[29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36]39,40,[42][43][44][45] and nine studies 26,29,32,36,38,39,[43][44][45] used the social participation subscale of the Stroke Impact Scale. Two studies 27,37 used both a subscale and full scale to assess social participation.…”

“…22,27,28 One study 41 did not have a confirmed PEdro score and it was calculated independently by two authors and disagreements were resolved by discussion. Eleven studies 23,24,26,[29][30][31]34,[42][43][44][45] did not perform an intention to treat analysis. More than 15% of loss to follow-up occurred in four studies.…”

“…One study each reported that no adverse events 25 and no serious adverse events occurred. 37 Seventeen studies [22][23][24]26,27,[29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36]39,[43][44][45] , including ten with exercise components, did not state whether any adverse events occurred or not.…”

Yoga in Neuro-Psychiatry

“…A recent RCT reported that yoga intervention improved the quality of life in stroke patients but not the objective motor function measures such as task-orientated function, balance or mobility [18].…”