NCT01735877

Effectiveness of Mirror Therapy in Stroke Patients With Unilateral Neglect - A Randomized Controlled Trial

• Status: Completed
• Phase: Phase 3
• Study type: Interventional
• Enrollment: 48 (actual)
• Sponsor: Christian Medical College and Hospital, Ludhiana, India · Academic / Other
• Sex: All
• Age: 18 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Not accepted

Summary

Hemi spatial neglect, or the tendency to ignore stimuli originating in a portion of the environment contra lateral to a cerebral lesion, can be a major source of functional handicap after stroke. The currently available treatments for unilateral neglect are scanning training, visual cuing approaches, limb activation strategies, visual imagery, tactile stimulation, prisms and sustained attention training.Mirror therapy improves the hand function in sub-acute stroke. Hypothesis: To evaluate the effectiveness of Mirror therapy in the management of stroke patients with unilateral neglect.

Detailed description

About 30 - 50% of stroke patients are left with considerable residual deficits. The post stroke disabilities are due to loss of locomotion and activities of daily living, cognition and communication skills.Hemispatial neglect has been reported in association with damage to several different cerebral structures in a large-scale distributed neurocognitive network.Mirror therapy improves the hand function in sub-acute stroke. It also helps in the recovery of neglect in stroke patients. But little consensus exists as to whether one treatment is more efficacious than others and many studies fail to document duration of treatment effects or generalization to daily activities. The aim of our study is to evaluate the effectiveness of limb activation with MT and limb activation strategy alone in the management of stroke patients with unilateral neglect and to make the patient functional in activities of daily living.

Conditions

• Hemispatial Neglect

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
OTHER	Mirror therapy	During the mirror practices, patients were seated close to a table on which a mirror (35×35cm) was placed vertically. The practice consisted of non paretic-side wrist and finger flexion and extension movements while patients looked into the mirror, watching the image of their noninvolved hand, thus seeing the reflection of the hand movement projected over the involved hand. Patients could see only the noninvolved hand in the mirror; otherwise, the noninvolved hand was hidden from sight. During the session patients were asked to try to do the same movements with the paretic hand while they were moving the non paretic hand.
OTHER	Control group	The control group performed the same exercises for the same duration but used the nonreflecting side of the mirror in such a way that the paretic hand was hidden from sight. The same therapist delivered the control therapy to the patients. Both the treatment and the control group received limb activation.

Timeline

• Start date: 2011-01-01
• Primary completion: 2013-07-01
• Completion: 2013-08-01
• First posted: 2012-11-28
• Last updated: 2014-06-30
• Results posted: 2014-06-30

Locations

1 site across 1 country: India