Abstract
In recent years, many study reports have been submitted about the effect of functional recovery of the paralyzed limb by constraint induced movement therapy (CIT). However, since CIT limits the healthy limb for a long time, it is problematic for clinical use. In this study we tried modified constraint induced therapy (mCIT) which was CIT revised conditions that we could carry out practically. The subject was a patient with disturbance of right lower limb voluntary movement due to cerebral infarction of the left medial frontal lobe including the supplementary motor area. The patient's non-paralyzed knee was fixed in an elastic knee brace for two days. After mCIT, it appeared that voluntary movement of the right lower limb had improved with marked improvements in various movements and gait ability. These changes in two days exceeded the natural recovery process after a cerebrovascular accident and we judged it to have been effected by mCIT. The background to these improvements is thought to be the supplementary motor area, which activates early in the process of motor recovery and dominates the limbs of both sides.
