A TREATMENT FOR EXCESS MOTOR DISABILITY IN THE AGED

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Stroke afflicts over 700,000 persons in America every year. There is thus an urgent need to translate unique behavioral techniques shown to have an impact on plasticity of the nervous system into practical evidence-based therapeutic interventions, especially at a time when the duration of treatments has shortened. In this laboratory we have developed on such set of techniques derived from basic research with an8mal and human subjects. Randomized, controlled studies indicate that it can substantially reduce the motor deficit of patients with mild to moderate chronic strokes from the upper two quartiles of motor functioning and can increase their independence over a period of years. The techniques, termed Constrain- Induced (CI) Movement Therapy, involve motor restriction of the less affected upper extremity for a period of two or three weeks while at the same time training the more affected upper limb. This gives rise to massed or repetitive use of the more affected extremity and to a large increase in use-dependent cortical reorganization involving the recruitment of substantial new regions of the brain in the innervation of more-affected extremity movement. One of the main aims of the proposed research is to determine if Cl Therapy can be used with therapeutic success for increasing the amount of real work extremity use in patients with chronic stroke who have a greater level of motor impairment than those previously worked with in this laboratory (i.e., patients who are approximately in the next to lowest quartile of motor functioning). Another aim is to ascertain whether the locus of the lesion and its size as determined by MRI, are factors influencing the extent to which motor function can be recovered through the use of CI Therapy. This prospective, 4-year randomized trial, including 18-month follow-up will use a crossover design. Eight patients with chronic stroke from the next to lowest quartile of motor functioning will be randomly assigned to receive either Cl therapy (40 subjects) or a General Fitness placebo control intervention (40 subjects). Two years after intake the control patients will be crossed over to receive Cl Therapy. Primary outcome measures will be a laboratory motor function test and amount of extremity use in the real world setting. Changes in psychosocial functioning will also be measured.