Abstract
BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: Stroke patients with a moderately to severely affected hand may be impeded in exploiting their full arm-hand training potential during rehabilitation due to spasticity. Reducing early signs of spasticity in sub-acute stroke patients may lead to improvements in arm-hand-function and arm-hand-skill-performance.
METHODS: Single-case-experimental-design and meta-analysis. Ten sub-acute stroke patients (Modified-Ashworth-Scale:1 + to 3) participated. Training: 2x6 weeks, using a well-described arm-hand regime (therapy-as-usual). Botulinum-toxin was administered once within 5 weeks after onset of therapy-as-usual. Measures: Action-Research-Arm-Test, ABILHAND, Fugl-Meyer-Assessment, grip-strength, Motricity-Index.
RESULTS: At group level, after baseline trend correction, adjusting for spontaneous recovery and therapy-as-usual effects, the added-value of botulinum-toxin-A on arm-hand-function and arm-hand-skill-performance was not confirmed. However, non-detrended data revealed significant improvements over time on arm-hand-function and arm-hand-skill-performance level (p
CONCLUSION: Application of botulinum-toxin-A may have an added-value in a substantial part of sub-acute stroke patients suffering from spasticity early post-stroke and who, at the point of therapy admission, display no dexterity. It may improve their arm-hand performance when combined with a well-defined therapy-as-usual.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 321-336 |
Number of pages | 16 |
Journal | Neurorehabilitation |
Volume | 48 |
Issue number | 3 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 2021 |
Keywords
- BOTULINUM-TOXIN
- EFFICACY
- IMPAIRMENT
- INTERRATER RELIABILITY
- MOTOR RECOVERY
- REHABILITATION
- SHOULDER PAIN
- Stroke
- TOXIN TYPE-A
- TRIAL
- UPPER-LIMB SPASTICITY
- arm-hand
- motor impairment
- motor performance
- rehabilitation
- spasticity
- task-oriented training
- POSTSTROKE SPASTICITY