Abstract

Introduction

Materials & Methods

Results

Discussion & Conclusion

References

Discussion
Board

Constraint-Induced (CI) Movement Therapy is a new approach to the rehabilitation of movement, based on research with monkeys given somatosensory deafferentation, that has been shown in controlled experiments to produce a large, permanent increase in the amount of use of an impaired upper extremity in chronic stroke patients in the real world (Taub et al, 1993; Taub, Crago, & Uswatte, 1998). CI therapy consists of a family of techniques that induce stroke patients to greatly increase their use of an affected upper extremity for many hours a day over 10 to 14 consecutive days. Two recent brain imaging studies have demonstrated that CI Therapy produces a large use-dependent cortical reorganization in patients, which may serve as the neural basis for the permanent increase in use of their stroke-affected arm. In the first experiment, the cortical region from which EMG responses of a hand muscle can be elicited by transcranial magnetic stimulation more than doubled after CI-Therapy (Liepert et al., 1998). In the second, the motor cortex ipsilateral to the affected arm, which normally controls movements of the contralateral arm, was recruited to generate movements of the affected arm 3 months after CI-Therapy treatment (Kopp et al., in press). To the best of our knowledge, these recent studies are the first to demonstrate an alteration in brain structure or function associated with therapy-induced rehabilitation of movement after CNS damage in humans.

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Presentation Number SAtaub0818
Keywords: stroke, rehabilitation, use-dependent, cortical, reorganization