Motor rehabilitation after traumatic brain injury and stroke - Advances in assessment and therapy

A long-term goal in motor rehabilitation is that treatment is not selected on the basis of 'schools of thought', but rather, based on knowledge about efficacy and effectiveness of specific interventions for specific situations (e.g. functional syndromes). Motor dysfunction after stroke or TBI can be caused by many different functional syndromes such as paresis, ataxia, deafferentaion, visuo-perceptual deficits, or apraxia. Examples are provided showing that theory-based analysis of motor behavior makes it possible to describe 'syndrome-specific motor deficits'. Its potential implications for motor rehabilitation are that our understanding of altered motor behavior as well as specific therapeutic approaches might be promoted. A methodological prerequisite for clinical trials in rehabilitation is knowledge about test properties of assessment tools in follow-up situations such as test-retest reliability and responsiveness to change. Test-retest reliability assesses whether a test can produce stable measures with test repetition, while sensitivity to change reflects whether a test detects changes that occur over time. Exemplifying these considerations, a reliability and validity study of a kinematic arm movement analysis is summarized. In terms of new therapeutic developments, two examples of clinical therapeutic studies are provided assessing the efficacy of specific inter-ventions for specific situations in arm and gait rehabilitation: the Arm Ability Training for high functioning hemiparetic stroke and TBI patients, and the treadmill training for non-ambulatory hemiparetic patients. In addition, a new technical development, a machine-controlled gait trainer ist introduced.