Rehabilitation Effect of Innovative Mirror Therapy on Upper Limb Impairment in Stroke Patients

Background:

Upper limb dysfunction is one of the common and important functional disorders in stroke patients. Upper limb dysfunction is often more difficult to recover than lower limb dysfunction, and it can also have a negative impact on lower limb function Therefore, the rehabilitation of upper limb dysfunction in stroke patients has always been regarded as the focus and difficulty of clinical rehabilitation.

 

Mirror therapy (MT) is a hand function rehabilitation training method. The doctor asks the patient to place the healthy hand outside the mirror box and the affected hand inside the mirror box. When the healthy hand moves, the patient is asked to observe the mirror image in the mirror, so that the patient has an illusion that the affected hand is moving. The purpose of this treatment method is to stimulate the patient's brain to observe, imagine and imitate movements through visual feedback, so as to implement rehabilitation training. The theoretical basis of MT is the mirror neuron theory. The theory holds that when observing the behavior of others, certain neurons in the observer's brain will be activated, as if the observer is also performing the same action. This phenomenon suggests that the brain has a certain plasticity and can change its structure and function through visual feedback to achieve the purpose of rehabilitation. At present, MT has been widely used in the rehabilitation of upper limb dysfunction in stroke patients. Many studies have shown that MT has a good effect in improving upper limb motor function and daily living activities in stroke patients. With the development of science and technology, especially the advancement of intelligent rehabilitation technology, more and more MT based on intelligent rehabilitation equipment have sprung up, which undoubtedly opens up more new possibilities for the development of MT. This study compared the rehabilitation effects of innovative MT and traditional MT on upper limb dysfunction in stroke patients.

Figure 1 Innovative MT(Syrebo Hand Rehabilitation Robot SY-HR08E) and traditional MT hand function training diagram

 

Objective

To evaluate the rehabilitation effect of innovative mirror therapy (MT) on the upper limb function and daily living activity ability of stroke patients.

 

Methods

Sixty patients with impaired hand function after stroke were enrolled and divided into the intervention (n = 30) and control groups (n = 30) according to the random number table method. Patients in the intervention group received conventional rehabilitation training combined with innovative MT, and those in the control group received conventional rehabilitation training and conventional MT. Before treatment and 4 weeks after treatment, the Fugl-Meyer Assessment Scale for the upper limb (FMA-UE), the Fugl-Meyer Assessment Scale for the wrist and fingers (FMA-WH), and the modified Barthel Index (MBI) were evaluated to compare the rehabilitation effects between two groups.

 

Results

After 4 weeks of treatment, the FMA-UE, FMA-WH, and MBI scores of patients in two groups were higher than those before treatment (all P < 0.05). The FMA-UE, FMA-WH, and MBI scores in the intervention group were higher than those in the control group (50.00 (25.75, 57.25) vs.24.00 (9.75, 51.50), 12.00(1.75, 14.75) vs. 0(0, 12.50), 24.50(13.00, 28.75) vs.13.00(4.75, 21.00), all P < 0.05). The differences before and after treatment of FMA-UE, FMA-WH and MBI scores in the intervention group were all higher than those in the control group (all P < 0.05).

Conclusion

Compared with traditional MT, innovative MT(Syrebo Hand Rehabilitation Robot SY-HR08E) yields higher efficacy in improving upper limb function and enhancing the daily living capability of patients with impaired hand function after stroke. As a new rehabilitation treatment technology, innovative MT has high clinical application value for hand dysfunction caused by neurological diseases.

 

Reference: CHEN Tao , LIU Shaxin , CHEN Xuelian , MAO Lei , LI Debo , GAN Linyu. Rehabilitation effect of innovative mirror therapy on upper limb impairment in stroke patients[J]. JOURNAL OF NEW MEDICINE, 2024, 55(6): 397-402 https://doi.org/10.3969/j.issn.0253-9802.2024.06.001