2020 年 16 巻 1 号 p. 83-86
Background: Paralysis of the upper limb after stroke affects daily life. Our objective was to examine the clinical effects of our newly developed finger extension splint, which was made by specially processing a shape memory alloy, in a chronic stroke patient.
Design: Comparison of the clinical effects of the splint use pre- and post-treatment.
Patient: A 70-year-old man who developed right thalamus hemorrhage 15 years previously presented with right hemiplegia.
Intervention: Training was performed 30 minutes/day for 10 weekdays for the fingers on the paralyzed side. Task-oriented training, such as block stacking, was performed.
Results: Upper limb function evaluation results (pre vs post-treatment): grip strength, 9.3 vs 12.1 kg; upper-extremity subtest of the Fugl-Meyer Assessment of Motor Function, 42 vs 54 points; Wolf Motor Function Test (functional ability scale), 47 vs 50 points; time, 389.2 vs 308.2 seconds, and the Box and Block Test: 11 vs 15 and 8 vs 15 with and without the splint, respectively.
Conclusion: When training was conducted using this splint, improvement of upper limb function was observed.
