Exercises For Stroke Patients (2019)
After a stroke has been suffered, post stroke exercises form the basis for a stroke rehabilitation program. Initial studies suggest that combining aerobic exercise with resistance training appears stroke recovery exercises to be an effective means for improving poststroke cognition, including executive function 29 Combination therapies may prove useful in treating other stroke-related functional impairments.
Aged animals exhibit a slower and less complete poststroke recovery than their younger counterparts on both cognitive and motor tasks 73 , 79 , 82 Interestingly, although aged rats are not able to recover as fully as younger rats on a single pellet reaching task, all ages use similar compensatory movements to improve their performance 83 Clinically, advancing age appears to be related to declines in ability to recover from stroke if considered from the perspective of performing activities of daily living (ADL) 74 However, by examining both ADL and the more neurologically focused Scandinavian Stroke Scale, Nakayama et al. 74 dissociated ADL performance (easily influenced by compensatory strategies) from true neurological improvement, which was not affected by age.
8 With 3 to 6 months of such AEX, persons with stroke have achieved significant improvements in aerobic capacity, 9-12 gait endurance, 9 , 12 self-reported general mobility, 9 cardiovascular risk factors, 10 , 13 blood flow (peripheral 14 and cerebral 15 ), brain activation 12 and cognition.
When performing passive range of motion on a stroke patient with limited range of motion, the exercises would only be done in a pain-free range, performed more slowly, and the helper should be aware of the patient's available movement or range of motion.
The Rehabilitation via HOMe Based gaming exercise for the Upper-limb post Stroke study is a non-randomised intervention trial ( figure 1 ). A total of 30 participants will be recruited to use the Neurofenix platform at home for 7 weeks (1 week training, 6 weeks exercise).
Unlike Haptics' joystick therapy and ARM's electrical stimulation, Rutgers developed a rehabilitation system by modifying the Microsoft Xbox video game and teaming it up with the gaming glove of Essential Reality P5. Engineers at Rutgers tinkered with the equipment to work with the glove through a new software that will enable stroke patients to recover hand functions with finger flexing exercises.
Physical activity and exercise recommendations for stroke survivors: an American Heart Association Scientific Statement from the Council on Clinical Cardiology, Subcommittee on Exercise, Cardiac Rehabilitation, and Prevention; the Council on Cardiovascular Nursing; the Council on Nutrition, Physical Activity, and Metabolism; and the Stroke Council.
17 A recent systematic review examined whether physical activity (including exercise) interventions improved cognitive function after stroke; meta-analysis of 9 trials (n=716 participants) showed a significant improvement in cognitive function (standardized mean difference SMD, 0.20; 95% confidence interval CI, 0.04-0.36; P=0.015).