The effects of combining repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation with occupational therapyamong post-hemiplegic stroke survivors:

Comparing the therapeutic effects between mild and severe finger motor dysfunction

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of low frequency repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) combined with occupational therapy (OT) on the evaluation of motor function;Fugl-Meyer Assessment, 10-second tests, Passive-Range of Motion (P-ROM), Modified Ashworth Scale (MAS) and Motor Activity Log (MAL), evoked potential improvement in patients of stroke hemiplegia. The analysis included a severe hemiplegia group and a mild hemiplegia group. This therapy showed improvement of statistical significance in all measures in patients with mild motor dysfunction. It showed improvement of statistical significance on MAS, P-ROM and MAL in patients of severe motor dysfunction. We found that MAL was improved because of improvement of MAS and P-ROM. These results indicate that rTMS combined with OT has therapeutic effect in patients with severe symptoms.