Hand dysfunction after Stroke
According to the World Health Organization，80% of stroke patients have varying degrees of limb dysfunction, more than 60% of them continue to have upper limb dysfunction after entering chronic stage. Especially hand dysfunction1. The function of the upper limb accounts for 60% of the whole body and the function of the hand accounts for 90% of the function of the upper limb. So intact hand function plays a very important role in people's work and life. There are many interventions for hand dysfunction after stroke. It can be divided into central intervention and peripheral intervention.
1. Peripheral intervention
Peripheral intervention of hand function after stroke is a general term for rehabilitation therapy that cannot directly affect the central nervous system and promotes the recovery of hand function. Including:
(1) Traditional manual rehabilitation: The therapist guides the patient actively participate in the training or through stretching, mobilization and other means.
(2) Physical agent therapy: electronic biofeedback, low frequency muscle electrical stimulation, etc.
(3) Adjuvant therapy: rehabilitation robot, splint and so on.
2. Central intervention
Central intervention refers to direct stimulation in damaged and functional brain regions through various precise positioning. For this “direct” stimulus, academics call it “non-invasive brain stimulation or “central intervention”. These are some methods, such as transcranial direct current stimulation (TDCS), mirror therapy (MT), transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS)and motor image(MI).