RESEARCH ARTICLE
Mental Practice Combined with Motor Rehabilitation to Treat Upper Limb Hemiparesis of Post-Stroke Patients: Clinical and Experimental Evidence
Sergio Machado1, 2, *, Eduardo Lattari1, 2, Flávia Paes1, Nuno B.F. Rocha3, Antonio E. Nardi1, Oscar Arias-Carrión4, Gioia Mura5, Ti-Fei Yuan6, Mauro G. Carta5, Carlos Campos1
Article Information
Identifiers and Pagination:
Year: 2016Volume: 12
First Page: 9
Last Page: 13
Publisher ID: CPEMH-12-9
DOI: 10.2174/1745017901612010009
Article History:
Received Date: 26/12/2014Revision Received Date: 12/7/2015
Acceptance Date: 06/08/2015
Electronic publication date: 15/3/2016
Collection year: 2016

open-access license: This is an open access article licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial 4.0 International Public License (CC BY-NC 4.0) (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/legalcode), which permits unrestricted, non-commercial use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the work is properly cited.
Abstract
Stroke is one of the major causes of disability in the world. Due to the extended lifetime of the world's population, the number of people affected by stroke has increased substantially over the last years. Stroke may lead to sensorimotor deficits, usually causing hemiplegia or hemiparesia. In order to reduce motor deficits and accelerate functional recovery, MP combined with motor rehabilitation was introduced to the rehabilitation process of post-stroke patients. Evidence has shown that MP combining with motor rehabilitation based on activities of daily living was more effective than conventional motor rehabilitation used per se. This combination proved very useful and effective, with significant results in improvement of motor deficits in post-stroke patients. However, further studies must be conducted to determine specific parameters, such as type of imagery, frequency or duration.