Objective: To investigate the effects of at-home rehabilitation on the functional improvement of hemiplegic upper limbs by playing electronic musical instruments in stroke patients.
Design: Before-and-after trial, Experimental clinical research.
Setting: Visiting a university hospital as an outpatient.
Participants: Twelve cases of hemiplegic patients, averaging 566.4 years old, having suffered brain stroke and living at home in which 8 to 270 months have passed since onset.
Interventions: An guitar type electrophone and electronic drum were rented out to the homes of the patients as electronic musical instruments; instructions were given to play these instruments once a week as an outpatient for 3 weeks each for a total of 6 weeks, and patients were trained to play the instruments using their paralyzed upper limbs. A set piece was specified weekly, and practice at home of at least 30 minutes a day was imposed. On that basis, changes in motor function and muscle spasms were evaluated. Main Outcome Measure(s): Fugl-Meyer Assessment of motor function items of the upper limb (on a scale of 0 to 66) and Modified Ashworth Scale (MAS).
Results: The Fugl-Meyer Assessment of motor function items of the upper limb improved from an average of 36.17 prior to the experiment to 41.67 following the experiment (p<0.01). Although temporal improvement was confirmed in muscle spasms following the experiment, there was no change in MAS throughout the entire training period.
Conclusions: Rehabilitation of the paralyzed upper limbs by playing music have a good effect for the paralytic improvement of the stroke patients at home.
http://www.archives-pmr.org/article/S0003-9993(14)00534-6/abstract?rss=yes
TBI Rehabilitation 