Abstract
Objective
To investigate the effectiveness of mirror therapy (MT) combined with bilateral arm
training and graded activities to improve motor performance in the paretic upper limb
after stroke.
Design
Randomized, controlled, assessor-blinded study.
Setting
Inpatient stroke rehabilitation center of a tertiary care teaching hospital.
Participants
Patients with first-time ischemic or hemorrhagic stroke (N=20), confined to the territory
of the middle cerebral artery, occurring <6 months before the commencement of the
study.
Intervention
The MT and control group participants underwent a patient-specific multidisciplinary
rehabilitation program including conventional occupational therapy, physical therapy,
and speech therapy for 5 d/wk, 6 h/d, over 3 weeks. The participants in the MT group
received 1 hour of MT in addition to the conventional stroke rehabilitation.
Main Outcome Measures
The Upper Extremity Fugl-Meyer Assessment for motor recovery, Brunnstrom stages of
motor recovery for the arm and hand, Box and Block Test for gross manual hand dexterity,
and modified Ashworth scale to assess the spasticity.
Results
After 3 weeks of MT, mean change scores were significantly greater in the MT group
than in the control group for the Fugl-Meyer Assessment (P=.008), Brunnstrom stages of motor recovery for the arm (P=.003) and hand (P=.003), and the Box and Block Test (P=.022). No significant difference was found between the groups for modified Ashworth
scale (P=.647).
Conclusions
MT when combined with bilateral arm training and graded activities was effective in
improving motor performance of the paretic upper limb after stroke compared with conventional
therapy without MT.
Keywords
List of Abbreviations:
BBT (Box and Block Test), CI (confidence interval), FMA (Fugl-Meyer Assessment), MAS (modified Ashworth scale), MT (mirror therapy)To read this article in full you will need to make a payment
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: July 23, 2014
Footnotes
Disclosures: none.
Identification
Copyright
© 2014 American Congress of Rehabilitation Medicine. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
