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Constraint-Induced Movement Therapy or CI Therapy is a form of treatment that systematically employs the application of selected behavioral techniques delivered in intensive treatment over consecutive day with the following strategies utilized: behavioral strategies are implemented to improve the use of the more- affected limb in life situation called a Transfer Package (TP), motor training using a technique called shaping to make progress in successive approximations, repetitive, task oriented training, and strategies to encourage or constrain participants to use the more-affected extremity including restraint of the less-affected arm in the upper extremity (UE) protocol. Numerous studies examining the application of CI therapy with UE rehabilitation after stroke have demonstrated strong evidence for improving the amount of use and the quality of the more-affected UE functional use in the participant's daily life situation. CI Therapy studies with adults, to date, have explored intensive treatment for participants with a range from mild-to-severe motor impairment following stroke with noted motor deficits and limited use of the more-affected arm and hand in everyday activities. Each CI Therapy protocol was designed for the level of impairment demonstrated by participants recruited for the study. However, often following stroke, patients not only have motor deficits but somatosensory impairments as well. The somatosensory issues have not, as yet, been systematically measured and trained in CI Therapy protocols with adults and represent an understudied area of stroke recovery. We hypothesize that participants with mild-to-severe motor impairment and UE functional use deficits can benefit from CI therapy protocols that include somatosensory measurement and training components substituted for portions of motor training without loss in outcome measure gains. Further, we hypothesize that adults can improve somatosensory outcomes as a result of a combined CI therapy plus somatosensory component protocol.
Constraint-Induced Therapy (CI Therapy) is a behavioral approach to neurorehabilitation and consists of multi-components that have been applied in a systematic method to improve the use of the limb or function addressed in the intensive treatment. CI Therapy for the more-affected upper extremity (UE) post-stroke is administered in daily treatment sessions over consecutive weekdays. Sessions include motor training with repeated, timed trials using a technique called shaping, a set of behavioral strategies known as the Transfer Package (TP) to improve the use of the more-affected hand in the life situation, and strategies to remind participants to use the more-affected UE including restraint. Robust improvements in the amount and qualify of use have been realized with stroke participants from mild-to-severe UE impairment.
The goal of this project is to determine the feasibility and optimal parameters of a novel, comprehensive approach to gait training in individuals with chronic stroke. The comprehensive approach includes biofeedback-based gait training and aerobic exercise intensity-based gait training.
This project seeks to determine how post-stroke cognitive impairment moderates motor learning during walking in older adults with chronic stroke and identify brain structural markers that mediate this relationship. The chosen experimental design integrates biomechanical analyses, neuropsychological assessments, and brain imaging techniques to determine the impact of post-stroke cognitive impairment severity on two forms of motor learning (explicit and implicit) and examine the role of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex in the relationship between cognition and explicit motor learning. Ultimately, this work may lead to the development of a more comprehensive, effective treatment approach to improve walking dysfunction in older adults post-stroke.
Participants are being asked to participate in a research study conducted by Shih-Chiao Tseng, PT, Ph.D. at Texas Woman's University. This research study is to determine whether low-intensive brain stimulation can enhance learning of a leg movement task. The investigators also want to know if brain stimulation can improve the nerve function and walking performance. Our goal is to understand any relationship between brain stimulation and overall movement control improvement. Participants have been invited to join this research if they have had a stroke before or they are healthy adults aged 21 years or older. Research evidence shows stroke can induce permanent brain damage and therefore may cause a person to have trouble learning a new task. This in turn may significantly impact the recovery of motor function in stroke survivors. In addition, the investigators also want to know how a healthy person learns this new leg task and see if her/his learning pattern differs from a stroke survivor. This study comprises two phases: Phase I study investigates short-term effects of brain stimulation on leg skill learning and only requires two visits to TWU. The total time commitment for Phase I study will be about 6.5 hours, 3.5 hours on the first visit and three hours on the second visit; Phase II study is an expanded version of Phase I study to investigate long-term effects of brain stimulation on leg skill learning and requires to complete 12 visits of exercise training paired with brain stimulation over a four-week period and additional one visit for follow-up test. The total time commitment for Phase II study will be about 20 hours, a total of 18 hours for 12 exercise training sessions and two hours for a follow-up test. The investigators hypothesize that people with chronic stroke will show a slower rate of acquiring this leg skill as compared to healthy adults. The investigators also hypothesize that co-applying brain stimulation with 12 sessions of exercise training will enhance skill learning of this leg task for people with chronic stroke and this 12-session exercise program may exert beneficial influences on the nerve function and leg muscle activation, and consequentially improve motor control for walking.
This study is being done to see how errors lead to improvement. Specifically, we are evaluating the errors stroke participants make during an upper extremity exercise program when reaching for a target using their affected arm. Once we understand the participant's reaching errors, we plan to create a customized reaching exercise according to the individual's specific error tendencies which will lead to better performance on movement ability after training.