The Progress of the Gait Impairment and Brain Activation in a Patient with Post-stroke Hemidystonia

We explore the effects of body weight-supported (BWS) treadmill training, including the change of cortical activation, on a patient with post-stroke hemidystonia.

The patient was a 71-year-old man with left thalamus hemorrhage. His motor symptoms indicated slight impairment. There was no overactive muscle contraction in the supine, sitting, or standing positions. During his gait, the right initial contact was the forefoot, and his right knee showed an extension thrust pattern. These symptoms suggested that he had post-stroke hemidystonia.

The patient performed BWS treadmill training 14 times over 3 weeks. The effects of the BWS training were assessed by a step-length analysis, electromyography and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI).

The patient's nonparetic step length was extended significantly in the Inter-BWS (p<0.001) and Post-BWS (p=0.025) periods compared to the Pre-BWS session. The excessive muscle activity of the right gastrocnemius medialis in the swing phase was decreased at the Inter-BWS, Post-BWS, and follow-up compared to the Pre-BWS session. The peak timing difference of the bilateral tibialis anterior muscle became significant (p<0.05) on the first day of the intervention. The fMRI revealed that the cortical areas activated by the motor task converged through the intervention (p<0.05, family-wise error corrected).

These results suggest that there was improvement of the patient's symptoms of post-stroke hemidystonia due to changes in the brain activity during voluntary movement after BWS intervention. Body weight-supported treadmill training may thus be an effective treatment for patients with poststroke hemidystonia.