Abstract
To study the sensitivity of existing motor assessment scales in detecting the improvement of motor function in the hemiplegics, we examined 24 stroke patients at 2-4 weeks, 4-8 weeks and 8-42 weeks after onset with motor assessment items of Stroke Impairment Assessment Set (SIAS-M), Motricity Index (MI) and Brunnstrome stage (BS). Many patients who seemed to have plateaued according to BS actually improved in their motor function when evaluated with SIAS-M or MI. Seventeen of the 24 patients improved in ambulation when assessed with Functional Independence Measure (FIM) score. Among these 17 patients, 11 (64.7%) showed no change in BS, while only 5 (29.4%) remained unchanged in SIAS-M. These results indicated that motor function actually recovered with improvement of walking ability, and SIAS-M was sensitive enough to detect the change while BS was not. We concluded that SIAS-M is more sensitive than BS in detecting motor recovery.
