Effects of the combination therapy of tilt sensor functional electrical stimulation and integrated volitional control electrical stimulation on brain activity during the subacute phase following stroke: a feasibility study.

This is a single case, so the reported changes may reflect natural recovery during the subacute period rather than the treatment. The patient received standard physical therapy including conventional intervention, integrated volitional control FES, and tilt sensor FES together, so the contribution of any single component cannot be separated. There was no comparison group and no random allocation, so the alternating conditions cannot establish that the treatment caused the observed changes. The paper did not test either FES device alone, so it cannot say whether the combination, the IVES training, or the WalkAide training was responsible. The walking outcome is described as time decreasing, while the table reports speed in meters per second, so the direction of the primary outcome is not stated clearly.

The work was supported by a JSPS KAKENHI grant and the Japanese Society for Electrophysical Agents in Physical Therapy, and the authors declared no conflicts of interest.

Do not read the faster walking and brain activation as proof that the FES devices caused recovery. The patient also received standard physical therapy including conventional intervention, and the integrated volitional control FES and tilt sensor FES were used together, so the contribution of any single component cannot be separated.