Knee joint angle of intracerebral hemorrhage-induced rats after extracorporeal shock wave therapy.
Jung-Ho Lee
PMID 27942132WHAT IT FOUND
In rats with induced brain hemorrhage, shock wave therapy to the affected hindlimb hamstring produced a smaller increase in knee angle at mid stance than no therapy.
This is animal data, not evidence of human walking improvement.
Key findings
01The treated group's change in knee angle was 10.32 ± 2.67 degrees, compared with 15.46 ± 3.64 degrees in the control group.
02The treated group showed a significantly smaller change in knee angle than the control group.
03Both groups showed significantly increased knee joint angles before and after the intervention period.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they found
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What it does not show
The authors say the results are difficult to generalize to humans because the experiment was done on rats. The authors say the post-evaluation was only two weeks after the initial evaluation, so more detailed changes in locomotion after nerve injury were not observed.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read this as evidence that shock wave therapy improves walking after stroke. The study was done in rats, and the untreated control group showed a larger change in knee angle than the treated group.