Turning the page on paralysis

American Fitness, Sept-Oct, 2004

Stephen Page, Ph.D., Director of the Neuromotor Recovery and Rehabilitation Laboratory at the Drake Center, a Cincinnati-based provider of specialized medical and rehabilitation services, has identified a new outpatient therapy that increases movement in affected arm of the stroke patient as well as other patients with similar disabilities. Page's Modified Constraint-Induced Therapy (mCIT) is comprised of two components. First, patients attend half-hour therapy sessions, in which they practice simulating real-life motions with their affected arms, three times per week for 10 weeks. Second, patients also practice at home for five hours a day, five days per week, and use their affected arms for all activities during the same 10-week period. Patients can develop long-term arm function to help them write, eat, use a computer and accomplish many other daily activities. This therapy can return motor function to patients up to nine years poststroke or other injury.

"This is a significant discovery that will help stroke patients return to productive, viable lifestyles," says Page. "Many positive things are happening, the most impressive of which is we are able to track a notable motor improvement in just a 10-week period. Very few therapies show long-term impacts on weakness or paralysis in the hand, so this latest procedure opens the proverbial therapy door."

With more than four million stroke survivors suffering from paralysis primarily affecting arm movement and the ability to perform essential daily activities, stroke is the leading cause of disability in the United States. However, because of therapy time and expenses, managed-care plans often discontinue therapies before patients can realize any positive long-term effects.

Preliminary results of this groundbreaking research were published in the January 2004 issue of the Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation. For more information on the Drake Center, call (513) 948-2500 or visit www.drakecenter.com