Abstract
We have often experienced that some stroke patients could walk faster or flex the knees more during swing phases after therapeutic electrical stimulation (TES) to tibialis anterior muscle of a hemiparetic side. The purpose of this study is to investigate the time-course of the effect of TES to tibialis anterior muscle of a hemiparetic side.
The subjects were ten hemiplegic patients who could walk independently with or without a cane and an ankle foot orthosis. We measured the knee flexion angle of the hemiparetic side during swing phases before TES (control), 0 min after TES, and every 30 min until 120 min after TES. The results showed that the flexion angle increased significantly at 0 min, compared with that of eight control subjects, and that the angle tended to increase 120 min after TES.
We concluded that the effect of TES to tibialis anterior muscle was maximal just after TES, and might continue several hours, although the time-course of the effect was different individually. We supposed that some factors of impairment such as muscle tonus might influence the course.
