Effect of mental practice using inverse video of the unaffected upper limb in a subject with chronic hemiparesis after stroke.
Naoki Iso, Shirou Ooso, Noboru Yamamoto and 6 others
PMID 27821974WHAT IT FOUND
In one man with chronic left hemiparesis, mental practice using an inverse video of his unaffected arm was paired with weekly outpatient OT.
His upper limb movement scores and reported hand use improved, but this is one case, not proof.
Key findings
01The main upper limb outcomes showed movement ability and amount of hand use improved, while quality of hand use did not.
02Improvement happened while the patient continued outpatient occupational therapy and added home mental practice, so the video method's separate effect cannot be isolated.
03The patient rated the vividness of his mental imagery higher at follow-up than at baseline.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for OTs
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What it does not show
Only one person was studied, so the results describe what happened in this case and do not show what would happen in other patients. The patient continued outpatient occupational therapy once weekly and also did the mental practice DVD, so the separate effect of the DVD method cannot be known. There was no comparison group or random assignment, and the analysis relied on the person's own baseline scores. Quality of hand use did not improve, so the gains were not seen across all outcomes.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that inverse video mental practice caused the improvement. The patient also continued outpatient occupational therapy, and the study involved only one person, so the contribution of the video method alone cannot be separated.