Post-Stroke Patients: A Case Study

Patients who recover from chronic stroke and other brain-related problems such as surgery on brain cancer tend to lose balance and gait abilities. This includes involuntary movements of some voluntary muscles in parts of the body. Lack of Coordination between the brain and the muscles when impaired lead to the involuntary muscular movement, a condition that affects many post-stroke patients. There have been a number of mechanisms to help post-stroke patients continue with their usual activities normally. Cho, Kim and Lee (2010) investigated how motor imagery training combined with gait training can improve balance and gait in the post-stroke patient. This experiment shows that motor imagery training has been demonstrated to increase motor performance as well as motor learning efficiency. It helps in providing muscle strength in cases of muscle problems (Cho et al., 2010).
The research was conducted in the outpatient rehabilitation setting. 28 stroke patients recruited from H rehabilitation center. The participants passed through the screening to ensure they do not have other conditions …show more content…
The information obtained in the experiment shows that the combination of both physiological and mental training is much better than only using physical training alone. This is important in restoring the balance and gait ability of stroke patients. Six weeks of task-specific motor imagery training was a significant improvement in muscle strength, balance and gait ability in ambulant stroke subjects for both groups. Thus, Motor Imagery Training has been confirmed that it can improve motor performance and learning, neural reorganization and cortical activation in stroke. It has a good effect on motor performance and motor learning in stroke rehabilitation. The combination as illustrated in the study shows more promising results than the use of physical training