To quantitatively evaluate the upper-limb spasticity of stroke patients in recovery stage, the relationship between surface electromyography (sEMG) characteristic indexes from biceps brachii and triceps brachii and the spasticity were explored, which provides the electrophysiological basis for clinical rehabilitation. Ten patients with spasticity after stroke were selected to be estimated by modified Ashworth (MAS) assessment and a passive elbow sinusoidal motion experiment was carried out. At the same time, the sEMG of biceps and triceps were recorded. The results shows that the reflex electromyographic threshold could reflect the physiological mechanism of spasticity and had significant correlation with MAS scale which showed that sEMG could be prosperous for the clinical quantitative evaluation of spasticity of stroke patients.
Electromyography ; Humans ; Muscle Spasticity ; physiopathology ; Muscle, Skeletal ; physiopathology ; Stroke ; physiopathology

Stroke has the characteristics of high prevalence, high morbidity, and high mortality, which seriously affects life quality of patients and also creates a huge social burden. Telerehabilitation technology is on the basis of traditional rehabilitation equipment and it integrates with cloud computing and big data technologies. It provides a new way for rehabilitation by providing comprehensive rehabilitation technology and service based on the cloud platform. Therefore, it provides a solution for the situation that the rehabilitation medical resources and the rehabilitation talents in China are relatively insufficient. This article mainly discusses the telerehabilitation technologies of lower extremity motor dysfunction in patients with stroke, the problems and the future development direction.
China ; Humans ; Leg ; physiopathology ; Stroke ; Stroke Rehabilitation ; Telerehabilitation ; instrumentation

OBJECTIVETo probe into effects of acupuncture on rehabilitation of nervous functions in the stroke patient of different OCSP types.

METHODSThe stroke patients were randomly divided into 4 subtypes (LACI, TACI, PACI, POCI) based on the OCSP clinical classification. The patients of every subtype were randomly sub-divided into an observation group and a control group. The patients in the 2 groups were treated with routine western medicine, and acupuncture at Baihui (GV 20), Sanyinjiao (SP 6), Taixi (KI 3), Xuehai (SP 10), etc. were added with reinforcing and reducing manipulation in the observation group and without manipulation of the needle in the control group. They were assessed with daily living ability scale (BI) at the time of enrollment, the end of 1, 3, 6, 12 months after the stroke, respectively.

RESULTSThere was no significant difference between the two groups for BI in LACI (P>0.05); there were significant differences 3, 6 and 12 months after the stroke between the two groups in PACI, POCI (P<0.05); in the TACI, there was a significant difference between the two groups for BI 3 and 6 months after stroke (P<0.05), with no significant difference 12 months after stroke (P>0.05).

CONCLUSIONAcupuncture has different effects on rehabilitation of daily living function in the stroke patient of different OCSP types.

Acupuncture Therapy ; Aged ; Female ; Humans ; Male ; Middle Aged ; Nervous System ; physiopathology ; Stroke ; physiopathology ; Stroke Rehabilitation

To better analyze the problem of abnormal neuromuscular coupling related to motor dysfunction for stroke patients, the functional coupling of the multichannel electromyography (EMG) were studied and the difference between stroke patients and healthy subjects were further analyzed to explore the pathological mechanism of motor dysfunction after stroke. Firstly, the cross-frequency coherence (CFC) analysis and non-negative matrix factorization (NMF) were combined to construct a CFC-NMF model to study the linear coupling relationship in bands and the nonlinear coupling characteristics in different frequency ratios during elbow flexion and extension movement. Furthermore, the significant coherent area and sum of cross-frequency coherence were respectively calculated to quantitatively describe the intermuscular linear and nonlinear coupling characteristics. The results showed that the linear coupling relationship between multichannel muscles was different in frequency bands and the overall coupling was stronger in low frequency band. The linear coupling strength of the stroke patients was lower than that of the healthy subjects in different frequency bands especially in beta and gamma bands. For the nonlinear coupling, the intermuscular coupling strength of stroke patients in different frequency ratios was significantly lower than that of the healthy subjects, and the coupling strength in the frequency ratio 1∶2 was higher than that in the frequency ratio 1∶3. This method can provide a theoretical basis for exploring the intermuscular coupling mechanism of patients with motor dysfunction.
Case-Control Studies ; Electromyography ; Humans ; Muscle, Skeletal ; physiopathology ; Stroke ; physiopathology ; Stroke Rehabilitation

Deglutition ; physiology ; Deglutition Disorders ; physiopathology ; Humans ; Muscles ; physiopathology ; Stroke ; physiopathology ; Viscosity

Autonomic disturbances often occur in patients with acute cerebrovascular disease due to damage of the central autonomic network. We summarize the structures of the central autonomic network and the clinical tests used to evaluate the functions of the autonomic nervous system. We review the clinical and experimental findings as well as management strategies of post-stroke autonomic disturbances including electrocardiographic changes, cardiac arrhythmias, myocardial damage, thermoregulatory dysfunction, gastrointestinal dysfunction, urinary incontinence, sexual disorders, and hyperglycemia. The occurrence of autonomic disturbances has been associated with poor outcomes in stroke patients. Autonomic nervous system modulation appears to be an emerging therapeutic strategy for stroke management in addition to treatments for sensorimotor dysfunction.
Acute Disease ; Animals ; Autonomic Nervous System ; physiopathology ; Cerebrovascular Disorders ; complications ; physiopathology ; Humans ; Nerve Net ; injuries ; Sensorimotor Cortex ; physiopathology ; Stroke ; physiopathology

OBJECTIVETo observe the effect of acupuncture on cortical functional areas of the patient with ischemic stroke activated by the index finger motion.

METHODSThe cortical magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) were carried out in 15 cases of ischemic stroke during the index finger motion at acupuncture or non-acupuncture. The distribution of the cortical functional areas activated and the size of the activated region and the intension of signals were measured.

RESULTSThe finger motion with no acupuncture could activate the contralateral primary somatomotor area (M1), contralateral premotor area (PMA) and contralateral first somatosensory area (S1). The finger motion with acupuncture could activate the same areas and also activate ipsilateral M1, focus area contralateral superior parietal lobule, contralateral superior temporal gyrus, and contralateral insular lobe, etc.. Both the area of the activated region and the minimum signal in the finger motion with acupuncture were statistically significantly larger than those in finger motion with no acupuncture.

CONCLUSIONRehabilitation of motor functions of the patient with ischemic stroke by acupuncture is related with improvement of blood circulation functional area in the cortex.

Acupuncture Therapy ; Aged ; Aged, 80 and over ; Brain Ischemia ; physiopathology ; rehabilitation ; Cerebral Cortex ; physiopathology ; Female ; Fingers ; physiopathology ; Humans ; Magnetic Resonance Imaging ; Male ; Middle Aged ; Movement ; Stroke ; physiopathology ; Stroke Rehabilitation

Low-frequency repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) is a non-invasive brain stimulation method that has been used in the treatments of stroke patients. Our purpose was to investigate the effects of low-frequency rTMS on the hand motor function recovery for stroke patients. After searching from electronic database from January 1990 to April 2012, we collected randomized controlled trials explored the low-frequency rTMS effects on the hand motor function rehabilitation. A total of 7 comparisons (N = 216) from 5 articles were included in this study. We summarized the effect size by calculating the standardized mean difference (SMD). Summary of effect size (SES) indicated positive effects of low-frequency rTMS on the finger motor ability (SMD = 0.58) and hand function (SMD = -0.98). Few adverse effects occurred. The evidence showed that low-frequency rTMS could improve the paretic hand recovery after stroke.
Hand ; physiopathology ; Humans ; Recovery of Function ; Stroke ; therapy ; Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation

Because of the aggressive threaten of heat stroke and a lack of understanding of the mechanism of action, mammal animal models for experimental heat stroke were well developed. During the past 5 decades, anesthetized mouse, rat, rabbit, dog, baboon and monkey were used as animal model for experimental heat stroke. However, anesthetized mammals models have some limitations, such as neuroprotective effect of anesthetic agents, possible disturbance on injury and recovery of stroke animals by anesthetic agents, difficulty of discussing animal behavior before and after heat stroke, it was also difficult for the models to evaluate cognitive function of animal under hot environment. Considering humanitarian, only awaked and unrestrained mouse heat stroke model was accepted so far. Therefore, we also developed an awaked and unrestrained rat heat stroke model, and found it was helpful to evaluate drug effectiveness for animal behavior and cognitive function under hot environment.
Animals ; Cognition ; Disease Models, Animal ; Heat Stroke ; physiopathology ; Mice ; Rats

This article is aimed to present a design of a testing device for knee joint kinematics parameters of patients with strokes. We used Auto CAD to design the knee joint sensor device, and applied multifunction data acquisition card to collect sensor data. Then we transferred the data to the computer to quantitatively detect and analyze the joint angle, angular velocity and other parameters. The software system used Visual C+ + MFC frame and shared database Access, and used ADO technology to realize the collection between the software system and patient information system. After a preliminary test of 20 healthy subjects, the result showed that intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) was more than 0.8, indicating a good reliability of the instrument.
Biomechanical Phenomena ; Computer-Aided Design ; Equipment Design ; methods ; Humans ; Knee Joint ; physiopathology ; Range of Motion, Articular ; Stroke ; physiopathology ; Stroke Rehabilitation