STROKE AND PHYSIOTHERAPY -------------------------------------- A stroke is a medical emergency. Strokes happen when blood flow to your brain stops. Within minutes, brain cells begin to die. There are two kinds of stroke. The more common kind, called ischemic stroke, is caused by a blood clot that blocks or plugs a blood vessel in the brain. The other kind, called hemorrhagic stroke, is caused by a blood vessel that breaks and bleeds into the brain. "Mini-strokes" or transient ischemic attacks (TIAs), occur when the blood supply to the brain is briefly interrupted. Symptoms of stroke are • Sudden numbness or weakness of the face, arm or leg (especially on one side of the body) • Sudden confusion, trouble speaking or understanding speech • Sudden trouble seeing in one or both eyes • Sudden trouble walking, dizziness, loss of balance or coordination • Sudden severe headache with no known cause If you have any of these symptoms, you must get to a hospital quickly to begin treatment. Acute stroke therapies try to stop a stroke while it is happening by quickly dissolving the blood clot or by stopping the bleeding. Post-stroke rehabilitation helps individuals overcome disabilities that result from stroke damage. Drug therapy with blood thinners is the most common treatment for stroke. Physiotherapy is beneficial in this area as it helps post-stroke individuals to progress through the stages of motor recovery. Initially, post-stroke individuals suffer from flaccid paralysis. As recovery begins, and progresses, basic movement synergies will develop into more complex and difficult movement combinations. Concurrently, spasticity may develop and become quite severe before it begins to decline (if it does at all). Although an overall pattern of motor recovery exists, there is much variability between each individual’s recovery. As previously described, the role of spasticity in stroke rehabilitation is controversial. However, physiotherapy can help to improve motor performance, in part, through the management of spasticity. Unaddressed spasticity will result in the maintenance of abnormal resting limb postures which can lead to contracture formation. In the arm, this may interfere with hand hygiene and dressing, whereas in the leg, abnormal resting postures may result in difficulty transferring. In order to help manage spasticity, physiotherapy interventions should focus on modifying or reducing muscle tone. Strategies include mobilizations of the affected limbs early in rehabilitation, along with elongation of the spastic muscle and sustained stretching. In addition, the passive manual technique of rhythmic rotation can help to increase initial range. Activating the antagonist (muscle) in a slow and controlled movement is a beneficial training strategy that can be used by post-stroke individuals. Splinting, to maintain muscle stretch and provide tone inhibition, and cold (i.e. in the form of ice packs), to decrease neural firing, are other strategies that can be used to temporarily decrease spasticity. The focus of physiotherapy for post-stroke individuals is to improve motor performance, in part, through the manipulation of muscle tone.
Posted on: Fri, 26 Jul 2013 15:23:10 +0000
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015