Tailored approach to physical therapy could be "key to greater recovery"RSS Feed

New research suggests a tailored approach to physical therapy after a neurological injury such as a stroke, traumatic brain injury or spinal cord injury could help restore a wider variety of functions.

Researchers at Georgetown University Medical Center have investigated the effects of training rats with spinal cord injuries on a robotic device that precisely guides the hind limbs through a training pattern.

For four weeks, half of the rats received daily training on the robotic trainer and half did not. At the end of each training week, and two weeks after completion of the full training program, walking performance of all animals was measured.

After four weeks of training, trained animals had shorter stride lengths than the non-trained ones both within the device as well as over ground.

"Our results show that increasing activity using a precise and repeatable physiologically relevant training pattern can modify over ground locomotion," said Nathan D Neckel, a post-doctoral fellow in the department of neuroscience.

"These findings suggest that more accurate and precise exercises in the human physical therapy clinic may lead to the restoration of function in everyday tasks," he added.

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According to Spinal-Research.org, every year more than 800 people in the UK and Ireland are paralysed following an injury to their spinal cord.

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