NCT04113369

Upper Limb Cross-education in Subacute Stroke

How Does Cross-education Affect Muscles of Paretic Upper Extremity in Subacute Stroke Survivors?

• Status: Completed
• Phase: N/A
• Study type: Interventional
• Enrollment: 30 (actual)
• Sponsor: Bezmialem Vakif University · Academic / Other
• Sex: All
• Age: 18 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Not accepted

Summary

This study evaluates how cross-education (unilateral training) affects muscle strength of the paretic limb in acute stroke patients. Half of the hemiplegic patients will receive conventional treatment and transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation (TENS) to non-paretic side, while other half will receive conventional treatment and electro muscular stimulation (EMS) to non-paretic side.

Detailed description

Cross-education, which means the performance improvement in the untrained homologous muscle after unilateral exercise training, is studied in various orthopedical and neurological conditions affecting the body unilaterally. For those with asymmetrical weakness and immobility after stroke, training the non-paretic side can be utilized to increase the strength of the paretic side and improve functional symmetry. In this study, investigators aim was to examine whether training non-paretic upper extremity wrist flexor muscles by EMS in adjunct to conventional training program, has additional benefits upon the muscle powers of the homologous agonist and antagonist muscles. Investigators will use low frequency antalgic TENS stimulation at barely sensible level, which is considered not to cause muscle strengthening, as a control intervention.

Conditions

• Hemiplegia
• Stroke

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
DEVICE	TENS	30 minutes of conventional antalgic TENS to non-paretic forearm
PROCEDURE	Conventional rehabilitation	40 minutes of lower limb training and 20 minutes of upper extremity training for stroke
DEVICE	EMS	20 minutes of EMS to non-paretic forearm with 5 minutes of pre and post warm-up

Timeline

• Start date: 2018-05-30
• Primary completion: 2019-07-30
• Completion: 2019-07-30
• First posted: 2019-10-02
• Last updated: 2020-04-10

Locations

1 site across 1 country: Turkey (Türkiye)