title: Differences in somatosensory and motor improvement during temporary functional deafferentation in stroke patients and healthy subjects.
abstract: Temporary functional deafferentation is of interest to become an additional tool in neurorehabilitative treatments. Temporary functional deafferentation is known to improve sensory and motor outcomes in chronic stroke patients and healthy subjects. The present study soughts to indicate differences in the efficiency of pharmacologically induced temporary functional deafferentation between chronic stroke patients and matched healthy subjects. 46 chronic stroke patients and 20 age- and gender-matched healthy subjects were deafferented on one forearm by an anesthetic cream. Somatosensory performance was assessed using von-Frey Hair testing and Grating orientation task; motor performance was assessed by means of a shape-sorter-drum task. Grating orientation task and shape-sorter-drum task were significantly improved during temporary functional deafferentation in stroke patients but not in healthy subjects. Von-Frey Hair testing revealed no improvement of absolute tactile thresholds during temporary functional deafferentation in both groups. Furthermore, the stroke patients showed deficits at baseline measurement in all assessments except the von-Frey Hair test. Temporary functional deafferentation of a forearm by an anesthetic cream results in improvements of motor performance and somatosensory discrimination in stroke patients but not in healthy subjects. Therefore, it is reasonable to test in a next step whether temporary functional deafferentation might become an additional tool in motor rehabilitation of post stroke patients.
authors.affiliation: Biological & Clinical Psychology, Friedrich Schiller University, Jena, D-07743, Germany.
authors.forename: Elisabeth
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Sens
authors.forename: Christin
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Knorr
authors.forename: Christoph
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Preul
authors.forename: Winfried
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Meissner
authors.forename: Otto W
authors.initials: OW
authors.lastname: Witte
authors.forename: Wolfgang H R
authors.initials: WH
authors.lastname: Miltner
authors.forename: Thomas
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Weiss
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D000772:Anesthesia, Local; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D002648:Child; D005260:Female; D005385:Fingers / Q000294:innervation / Q000503:physiopathology; D005684:Gait / Q000502:physiology; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D015915:Motion Therapy, Continuous Passive / Q000379:methods*; D009068:Movement / Q000502:physiology*; D012684:Sensory Thresholds / Q000502:physiology*; D018709:Statistics, Nonparametric; D020521:Stroke / Q000503:physiopathology*; D000071939:Stroke Rehabilitation; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: CIMT; Constraint-Induced Movement Therapy; Cortical plasticity; D2; GOT; Rehabilitation; SSDT; Sensorimotor improvement; Stroke; TFD; Temporary functional deafferentation; VFHT; VFHT-D2; VFHT-FA; Von-Frey hair testing; Von-Frey hair testing at the forearm; Von-Frey hair testing at the index finger; baseline evaluation; grating orienting task; index finger; n.s.; not significant; shape-sorter-drum task; t1; t2; temporary functional deafferentation; treatment evaluation