By IANS,
Washington: Patients show modest yet meaningful gains in limb movements and an improved outlook on life years after suffering a stroke, says a major clinical study.
The study provides the best evidence yet that stroke sufferers in a controlled regimen can regain limb movement long after an injury, through intensive therapy with specially trained personnel and newly created robotic aids.
“There are about 6.4 million stroke patients in the US with chronic deficits. We’ve shown that with the right therapy, they can see improvements in movement, everyday function, and quality of life,” said Albert Lo, assistant professor of neurology at Brown University, who led the study.
The therapy involved repetitive, guided movement, three times a week, for three months. One group of patients underwent upper-limb therapy with the use of robots designed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
Others did similar high-intensity exercises with a therapist. At each session, the patients performed 1,024 upper-arm movements, a substantially more intense workout than in a conventional rehabilitation session.
A third, smaller group had only “usual care” — they received general health care but no specific therapy for their stroke-damaged upper limb.
Patients who had 12 weeks of robot-assisted therapy showed statistically significant improved quality of life compared to those who had no additional therapy.
At six months, patients aided by the robotic therapy showed clinically significant upper-arm function (3-point improvement on the Fugl-Meyer Scale) compared to the usual care group.
The study featured a robot called the MIT-Manus, which had been tested in a few smaller trials. Users sit at a table with their affected arm attached to the device.
They follow therapists’ instructions or computerised prompts and move a cursor on a screen — somewhat like a video game — and try to perform a task with their arm. The robot senses their movement and helps as needed.
The three-year randomised control trial by the US Department of Veterans Affairs (DVA) enrolled 127 veterans at four DVA sites.
All had suffered a stroke at least six months earlier and had moderate to severe impairment of an arm. On average, the strokes had occurred nearly five years before.
One-third of the victims had suffered multiple strokes. Patients typically get rehabilitation therapy only during the first six months or so after a stroke, says a Brown University release.
These findings were published online in the New England Journal of Medicine.