The Effectiveness of Mirror Therapy to Upper Extremity Rehabilitation in Acute Stroke Patients

Abstract

Rehabilitation is a crucial part of stroke recovery to help them regain use of their limb. The aim of this article was to compare the effectiveness of long-term training of mirror therapy with conventional rehabilitation therapy on neurological and recovery of upper limb in acute stroke patients. In this randomized and assessor-blinded control study, 20 acute stroke patients were analyzed in this study and allocated to a case (n = 10, 50.6 ± 17.90 years) and control group (n = 10, 55.9 ± 11.25 years). All the participants performed daily home exercise during 12 weeks. The patients in the control group were treated with conventional therapy (CT) and a group of cases were treated with mirror therapy (MT) alone program. The outcome measurements were assessed by a therapist blinded assessor using Fugl-Meyer Assessment (FMA) upper extremity score, Brunnstrom recovery stages (BRS), Modified Ashworth Scale (MAS) and Muscle Strength to evaluate upper limb motor function and motor recovery. Data were analyzed using Wilcoxon and Mann-Whitney U tests to compare within-groups and between-group differences. The results revealed that, after 12 weeks of treatment, patients of both groups presented statistically significant improvements in all the variables measured (p < 0.05). Compared with the control group, the patients of the MT group had greater improvement in the proximal movement portion of the FMA upper extremity mean score change (15.8 ± 3.2 versus 10.0 ± 2.7, p = 0.002) while there were no differences in other variables (p > 0.05). There were also no adverse events. It suggests that 12 weeks training of mirror therapy alone was likely to improve the motor recovery of the upper limb and activity of daily living in acute stroke patients than conventional therapy, if treated early.