NEUROMUSCULAR STIMULATION FOR UPPER EXTREMITY MOTOR AND FUNCTIONAL RECOVERY IN ACUTE HEMIPLEGIA

Background and Purpose-The purpose of this study was to assess the eff icacy of neuromuscular stimulation in enhancing the upper extremity mo tor and functional recovery of acute stroke survivors. Methods-Forty-s ix stroke survivors admitted to an inpatient rehabilitation unit were randomly assigned to receive either neuromuscular stimulation or place bo. Twenty-eight subjects completed the study, The treatment group rec eived surface neuromuscular stimulation to produce wrist and finger ex tension exercises. The control group received placebo stimulation over the paretic forearm. All subjects were treated 1 hour per day, for a total of 15 sessions. Outcomes were assessed in a blinded manner with the upper extremity component of the Fugl-Meyer Motor Assessment and t he self-care component of the Functional Independence Measure at pretr eatment, after treatment, and at 4 and 12 weeks after treatment. Resul ts-The treatment subjects and control subjects had comparable baseline characteristics. Parametric analyses revealed significantly greater g ains in Fugl-Meyer scores for the treatment group after treatment (13. 1 versus 6.5; P=0.05), at 4 weeks after treatment (17.9 versus 9.7; P= 0.05), and at 12 weeks after treatment (20.6 versus 11.2; P=0.06), Fun ctional Independence Measure scores were not different between groups at any of the time periods (P>0.10), Conclusions-Data suggest that neu romuscular stimulation enhances the upper extremity motor recovery of acute stroke survivors. However, the sample size in this study was too small to detect any significant effect of neuromuscular stimulation o n self-care function.