RESUMO
Background. Stroke is a leading cause of death and disability worldwide and there is a very short period of increased synaptic plasticity, fundamental in motor recovery. Thus, it is crucial to acquire data to guide the rehabilitation treatment. Promising results have been achieved with kinematics and neurophysiological data, but currently, few studies integrate these different modalities. Objectives. We explored the correlations between standardized clinical scales, kinematic data, and EEG measures 4 weeks after stroke. Methods. 26 patients were considered. Among them, 20 patients also performed the EEG study, beyond the kinematic analysis, at 4 weeks. Results. We found correlations between the Fugl-Meyer Assessment-Upper Extremity, movement duration, smoothness measures, and velocity peaks. Moreover, EEG measures showed a tendency for the healthy hemisphere to vicariate the affected one in patients characterized by better clinical conditions. Conclusions. These results suggest the relevance of kinematic (in particular movement duration and smoothness) and EEG biomarkers to evaluate post-stroke recovery. We emphasize the importance of integrating clinical data with kinematic and EEG analyses from the early stroke stages, in order to guide rehabilitation strategies to best leverage the short period of increased synaptic plasticity.
RESUMO
This preliminary study introduces a novel action observation therapy (AOT) protocol associated with electroencephalographic (EEG) monitoring to be used in the future as a rehabilitation strategy for the upper limb in patients with subacute stroke. To provide initial evidence on the usefulness of this method, we compared the outcome of 11 patients who received daily AOT for three weeks with that of patients who undertook two other approaches recently investigated by our group, namely intensive conventional therapy (ICT), and robot-assisted therapy combined with functional electrical stimulation (RAT-FES). The three rehabilitative interventions showed similar arm motor recovery as indexed by Fugl-Meyer's assessment of the upper extremity (FMA_UE) and box and block test (BBT). The improvement in the FMA_UE was yet more favourable in patients with mild/moderate motor impairments who received AOT, in contrast with patients carrying similar disabilities who received the other two treatments. This suggests that AOT might be more effective in this subgroup of patients, perhaps because the integrity of their mirror neurons system (MNS) was more preserved, as indexed by EEG recording from central electrodes during action observation. In conclusion, AOT may reveal an effective rehabilitative tool in patients with subacute stroke; the EEG evaluation of MNS integrity may help to select patients who could maximally benefit from this intervention.
RESUMO
The aim of the present study was to explore the possible change in eye movement performance in a group of dyslexic and non-dyslexic children reading four lines of a text with different font sizes and spaces between the words. Fifteen dyslexic children from 7 to 12â¯years old and two groups of fifteen non-dyslexic children, respectively reading and chronological age-matched group, participated in this study. Horizontal eye movements from both eyes were recorded by a video-system (EyeBrain T2®) while the children were reading a text. Three different texts were used with different font sizes and spaces between words. Results showed that increasing font size and character spacing significantly reduced duration of the fixation and increased the number and amplitude of prosaccades in all groups of children tested. Interestingly, while reading texts in which the letters were larger and more spaced (Texts 2 and 3), the duration of fixations in dyslexic and in non-dyslexic children groups decreased, becoming similar to those reported in the non-dyslexic children group. We suggest that large letter spacing between words could be employed in schools to help dyslexic children in order to ameliorate their reading performance.