Brain Stimulation Can Help Partially Paralysed Stroke Patients Regain Use Of Their Muscles
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
By: Medical News Today

Medical News Today

Stroke patients who were left partially paralysed found that their condition improved after they received a simple and non-invasive method of brain stimulation, according to research in the September issue of the European Journal of Neurology.

Researchers from the Ain Shams University in Cairo, Egypt, studied 60 patients with ischaemic stroke - where the blood supply is reduced to the brain who had been left with mild to moderate muscle weakness down one side of their body.

Twenty of the randomly assigned treatment group received repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) applied at 5-Hz over the brain hemisphere affected by the stroke and the other 20 received 1-Hz stimulation of the unaffected hemisphere. The remaining 20 formed the control group, receiving inactive placebo doses of the treatment. All patients received the same physical therapy.

"When we compared the results between the three groups, we found that both of the treatment groups showed significant motor function recovery" says co-author Anwar El Etribi, Professor of Neurology and Psychiatry at the University. "No improvements were seen in the control group who had received the placebo treatment and the same physical therapy protocol."

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