New Protocols in the Treatment of Upper Limb Dysfunctions of Patients With Stroke.

The research program aims at studying patients with stroke the immediate and maintaining effects of new upper-extremity (UE) treatment protocols after brain damage and identifying the possible mechanisms underlying treatment-induced changes in patients with stroke. This research will study new treatment approaches that have been formulated based on principles of integrated central modulation (rTMS) and peripheral modification techniques (BoNTA).

1. To compare the movement functions and motor control in patients with stroke of different motor severities.
2. To investigate the immediate and maintaining effects of different protocols in the treatment of upper limb functions.

3. To evaluate motor control and clinical outcomes after different treatment approaches applied in the UE training of patients with stroke. The treatment approaches to be studied will include different protocols. We hypothesize that there will be improvements in movement performance after the treatment and the level of post-treatment performance will differ among the treatments through different reorganization patterns.

   3.1 To compare the motor control and clinical outcomes after different treatment approaches.

   3.2 To identify the optimal treatment protocol for patients with stroke.

4. To investigate the possible predictors of treatment outcome associated with motor severity, movement and participation for each type of treatments. The possible predictors will include brain lesions, and severity. We hypothesize that the proposed prognostic factors will predict treatment outcomes.
5. To analyze the association between motor reorganization measured by kinematic study and behavioral improvement in motor severity, movement and participation measured by clinical tools.

Treating motor dysfunction in patients with stroke requires an understanding of the mechanism underlying motor control. Recent reports have suggested BoNTA and rTMS improved motor function in patients with various disorders. However, there are few researches in identifying the optimal rTMS protocol in the treatment of upper limb dysfunctions in patients with stroke. There is lack of literatures in verifying the treatment effect by movement control studies. The current research will offer valuable kinematic data that support neural-motor models proposed to account for motor control problems in these patients. More important, we will identify the new protocol in the treatment of upper limb dysfunctions in patients with stroke through integration of clinical and kinematic measures. We will identify clinical predictors influencing the outcome for different treatment approaches, and analyze the association between motor control and clinical measures involving motor severity, movement and participation. We believe the results of this study will refine services and supports for patients with stroke to meet these goals. This study may potentially provide directions in kinematic measures for future studies on patients with stroke.