Am J Occup Ther. 2021 Nov 1;75(6):7506205020. doi: 10.5014/ajot.2021.044925.
ABSTRACT
IMPORTANCE: Occupational therapists are the primary clinicians tasked with management of the more affected upper extremity (UE) after stroke. However, there is a paucity of efficacious, easy-to-use, inexpensive interventions to increase poststroke UE function.
OBJECTIVE: To compare the effect of a multimodal mental practice (MMMP) regimen with a repetitive task practice (RTP)-only regimen on paretic UE functional limitation.
DESIGN: Secondary analysis of randomized controlled pilot study data.
SETTING: Outpatient clinical rehabilitation laboratory.
PARTICIPANTS: Eighteen chronic stroke survivors exhibiting moderate, stable UE impairment.
INTERVENTION: Participants administered RTP only participated in 45-min, one-on-one occupational therapy sessions 3 times per week for 10 wk; participants administered MMMP completed time-matched UE training sessions consisting of action observation, RTP, and mental practice, delivered in 15-min increments. Outcomes and Measures: The Action Research Arm Test, the UE section of the Fugl-Meyer Scale, and the Hand subscale of the Stroke Impact Scale (Version 3.0) were administered 1 wk before and 1 wk after intervention.
RESULTS: The MMMP group exhibited significantly larger (p < .01) increases on all three outcome measures compared with the RTP group and surpassed minimal clinically important difference standards for all three UE outcome measures.
CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE: Because of the time-matched duration of MMMP and RTP, findings suggest that MMMP may be just as feasible as RTP to implement in clinical settings. Efforts to replicate results of this study in a large-scale trial are warranted. What This Article Adds: This study shows the efficacy of an easy-to-use protocol that significantly increased affected arm function even years after stroke.
PMID:34817599 | DOI:10.5014/ajot.2021.044925
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