Added-value of spasticity reduction to improve arm-hand skill performance in sub-acute stroke patients with a moderately to severely affected arm-hand.

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.

Changes in actual arm-hand use in stroke patients during and after clinical rehabilitation involving a well-defined arm-hand rehabilitation program: A prospective cohort study.

Introduction: Improvement of arm-hand function and arm-hand skill performance in stroke patients is reported by many authors. However, therapy content often is poorly described, data on actual arm-hand use are scarce, and, as follow-up time often is very short, little information on patients' mid- and long-term progression is available. Also, outcome data mainly stem from either a general patient group, unstratified for the severity of arm-hand impairment, or a very specific patient group.

Evaluation of a functional hand orthosis combined with electrical stimulation adjunct to arm-hand rehabilitation in subacute stroke patients with a severely to moderately affected hand function.

Purpose: To investigate the usability and effectiveness of a functional hand orthosis, combined with electrical stimulation adjunct to therapy-as-usual, on functional use of the moderately/severely impaired hand in sub-acute stroke patients.

Materials And Methods: Single case experiment (A-B-A'-design) involving eight sub-acute stroke patients. The functional hand orthosis and electrical stimulation were used for six weeks, four days/week, 45'/day.

Changes in arm-hand function and arm-hand skill performance in patients after stroke during and after rehabilitation.

Background: Arm-hand rehabilitation programs applied in stroke rehabilitation frequently target specific populations and thus are less applicable in heterogeneous patient populations. Besides, changes in arm-hand function (AHF) and arm-hand skill performance (AHSP) during and after a specific and well-described rehabilitation treatment are often not well evaluated.

Method: This single-armed prospective cohort study featured three subgroups of stroke patients with either a severely, moderately or mildly impaired AHF.