Visual Feedback Therapy for Treating Individuals With Hemiparesis Following Stroke

Albert Einstein Healthcare Network

Status: Completed

Conditions: Stroke; Hemiparesis

Treatments: Behavioral: Divider therapy; Behavioral: Mirror therapy

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT01662960

HN 4404

NIH R01 HD068565 (Other Identifier)

Details and patient eligibility

About

The purpose of the study is to determine whether an existing treatment for problems that participants have with making movements after a stroke can be performed at home.

Full description

This study will compare two forms of home-based treatment for post-stroke problems making movements with the arms and hands. After initial pre-treatment assessments, participants will complete 4 weeks of treatment, with assessments after each week of treatment and 3 months after the completion of treatment.

Enrollment: 72 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 21 to 85 years old

Volunteers: No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• 6 months or more post-stroke
• upper extremity Fugl-Meyer score between 10 and 50
• no longer participating in upper-extremity physical or occupational therapy
• sufficient comprehension ability to understand instructions

Exclusion criteria

• previous head trauma, psychiatric illness or chronic exposure to medications that might be expected to have lasting consequences for the central nervous system (e.g., haloperidol, dopaminergics)
• dementia

Trial design

Primary purpose: Treatment

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: Triple Blind

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72 participants in 2 patient groups

Mirror therapy

Experimental group

Description:

4 weeks of home-based mirror therapy. Participants practiced making movements with mirrored visual feedback of the low-functioning arm.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Mirror therapy

Divider therapy

Active Comparator group

Description:

4 weeks of home-based divider therapy (control therapy to mirror therapy; mirror replaced by a divider). Participants practiced making movements with no visual feedback of the low-functioning arm.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Divider therapy