Falls After Stroke

After acute stroke, one of the most common medical complications is unexpected falls. Furthermore, the high fall risk remains a considerable health concern throughout the post stroke life span. Unfortunately, most of the stroke patients are aged people and social impact is growing. Stroke survivors are much more likely to sustain a hip fracture due to a fall than people without stroke; they often more easily lose independent mobility or even face more severe consequences. Preventing falls is an important issue for every person involved in stroke care and in any of the post-stroke stages. Continue reading →

Motor Imagery in Rehabilitation of Hemiparesis

As a consequence of a brain injury, hemiparesis may occur and bring you spasticity, muscle weakness, and a persistent deficit in movement coordination. Such incoordination occurs at least in part because the brain part responsible for mediating an action intention and the part in charge of action execution are no longer intact.

Nearly 80% of people who have had a stroke have more or less trouble moving one side. People with hemiparesis may have trouble moving their arms and legs, difficulty walking and may also experience a loss of balance. As a result, doing simple everyday activities could be difficult. Depending on the damaged area of the brain, the most common type is pure motor hemiparesis: Patients with pure motor hemiparesis have face, arm and leg weakness.

Classic treatment consists of physical the occupational therapy as we mentioned several times in our previous editions. Electrical stimulation to the area of the brain as we presented recently also becomes an interesting treating approach. On the other hand, certain treatments can be helpful in relaxing the muscles in people who have spasticity referring to our last year June’s edition.

A quite common and systematic method is called Modified constraint-induced therapy (mCIT) and it has been presented in our last year January’s edition. It is a focused treatment to stroke patients with hemiparetic arms. Three times a week at their therapist for half an hour each time, patients are asked to practice focused exercises using their weak arm. This therapy could last for 10 weeks. Preliminary studies indicate that mCIT substantially improves affected upper limb use and function in stroke patients. Continue reading →

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