Title:Is Mental Practice an Effective Adjunct Therapeutic Strategy for Upper Limb Motor Restoration After Stroke? A Systematic Review and Meta- Analysis
VOLUME: 14 ISSUE: 5
Author(s):Sergio Machado, Eduardo Lattari, Alberto Souza de Sá, Nuno B.F. Rocha, Ti-Fei Yuan, Flávia Paes, Mirko Wegner, Henning Budde, Antonio E. Nardi and Oscar Arias-Carrión
Affiliation:Panic and Respiration Laboratory. Institute of Psychiatry (IPUB) – Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ). Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
Keywords:Hemiparesis, mental practice, physical practice, stroke.
Abstract:Stroke is one of the most common conditions requiring rehabilitation, and its motor impairments are a major
cause of permanent disability. Hemiparesis is observed by 80% of the patients after acute stroke. Neuroimaging studies
showed that real and imagined movements have similarities regarding brain activation, supplying evidence that those
similarities are based on the same process. Within this context, the combination of mental practice (MP) with physical and
occupational therapy appears to be a natural complement based on neurorehabilitation concepts. Our study seeks to
investigate if MP for stroke rehabilitation of upper limbs is an effective adjunct therapy. PubMed (Medline), ISI
knowledge (Institute for Scientific Information) and SciELO (Scientific Electronic Library) were terminated on 20
February 2015. Data were collected on variables as follows: sample size, type of supervision, configuration of mental
practice, setting the physical practice (intensity, number of sets and repetitions, duration of contractions, rest interval
between sets, weekly and total duration), measures of sensorimotor deficits used in the main studies and significant
results. Random effects models were used that take into account the variance within and between studies. Seven articles
were selected. As there was no statistically significant difference between the two groups (MP vs control), showed a – 0.6
(95% CI: –1.27 to 0.04), for upper limb motor restoration after stroke. The present meta-analysis concluded that MP is not
effective as adjunct therapeutic strategy for upper limb motor restoration after stroke.
