Deans' stroke musings: Effects of a mirror-induced visual illusion on a reaching task in stroke patients: Implications for mirror therapy training

Changing stroke rehab and research worldwide now.Time is Brain! trillions and trillions of neurons that DIE each day because there are NO effective hyperacute therapies besides tPA(only 12% effective). I have 523 posts on hyperacute therapy, enough for researchers to spend decades proving them out. These are my personal ideas and blog on stroke rehabilitation and stroke research. Do not attempt any of these without checking with your medical provider. Unless you join me in agitating, when you need these therapies they won't be there.

What this blog is for:

My blog is not to help survivors recover, it is to have the 10 million yearly stroke survivors light fires underneath their doctors, stroke hospitals and stroke researchers to get stroke solved. 100% recovery. The stroke medical world is completely failing at that goal, they don't even have it as a goal. Shortly after getting out of the hospital and getting NO information on the process or protocols of stroke rehabilitation and recovery I started searching on the internet and found that no other survivor received useful information. This is an attempt to cover all stroke rehabilitation information that should be readily available to survivors so they can talk with informed knowledge to their medical staff. It lays out what needs to be done to get stroke survivors closer to 100% recovery. It's quite disgusting that this information is not available from every stroke association and doctors group.

Tuesday, December 9, 2014

Effects of a mirror-induced visual illusion on a reaching task in stroke patients: Implications for mirror therapy training

A very simple question for your doctor.
Does this work?
What is the protocol to be used?
Do not attempt this on your own, you know how dangerous looking into a mirror is if you haven't been properly trained by your therapist.
http://search.naric.com/research/rehab/redesign_record.cfm?search=2&type=all&criteria=J69565&phrase=no&rec=125897

NARIC Accession Number: J69565. What's this?
ISSN: 1545-9683.
Author(s): Selles, Ruud W.; Michielsen, Marian E.; Bussmann, Johannes B. J.; Stam, Henk J.; Hurkmans, Henri L.; Heijnen, Iris; de Groot, Danielle; Ribbers, Gerard M..
Publication Year: 2014.
Number of Pages: 8.
Abstract: Study determined the relative contribution of a mirror in training a reaching task and of unilateral and bimanual training with a mirror. A total of 93 stroke patients at least 6 months poststroke were instructed to perform a reaching task as fast and as fluently as possible. At baseline and follow-up, patients performed 6 trials using only their paretic side. They performed 70 practice trials after being randomly allocated to 1 of 5 experimental groups: training with (1) the paretic arm with direct view (Paretic-No Mirror), (2) the nonparetic arm with direct view (Nonparetic-No Mirror), (3) the nonparetic arm with mirror reflection (Nonparetic Mirror), (4) both sides and with a nontransparent screen preventing visual control of paretic side (Bilateral-Screen), and (5) both sides with mirror reflection of the nonparetic arm (Bilateral-Mirror). Primary outcome measure was the movement time. The largest intervention effect was found in the Paretic-No Mirror condition. However, the Nonparetic-Mirror condition was not significantly different from the Paretic-No Mirror condition, while the Unaffected-No Mirror condition had significantly less improvement than the Paretic-No Mirror condition. In addition, movement time improved significantly less in the bimanual conditions and there was no difference between both bimanual conditions or between both mirror conditions. Results confirm that using a mirror reflection can facilitate motor learning. In this study, bimanual movement using mirror training was less effective than unilateral training.
Descriptor Terms: BIOENGINEERING, BODY MOVEMENT, LIMBS, MOTOR SKILLS, PHYSICAL THERAPY, STROKE, TASK ANALYSIS.

Can this document be ordered through NARIC's document delivery service*?: Y.

Citation: Selles, Ruud W., Michielsen, Marian E., Bussmann, Johannes B. J., Stam, Henk J., Hurkmans, Henri L., Heijnen, Iris, de Groot, Danielle, Ribbers, Gerard M.. (2014). Effects of a mirror-induced visual illusion on a reaching task in stroke patients: Implications for mirror therapy training. Neurorehabilitation and Neural Repair, 28(7), Pgs. 652-659. Retrieved 12/9/2014, from REHABDATA database.