Multimedia holistic rehabilitation method for patients after stroke-efficiency analysis.

The article presents the results of post-stroke rehabilitation of patients with brain dysfunctions causing cognitive impairments such as problems with concentrating, reasoning, logical thinking, and memory. Some of those patients suffered from various forms of aphasia as well. The holistic rehabilitation of the stroke patients was aided by specially designed computer systems offering an array of varied multimedia tasks. The research results presented below confirm the usability of the suggested method.

A multimedia holistic rehabilitation method for patients after stroke.

The rehabilitation of patients after a stroke must provide polisensoric cognitive therapy. A specially designed computer/information system suits well to these requirements and offers a complementary and holistic treatment, which can be used in a rehabilitation center and later at the patient's home.

[Computer-based rehabilitation of cognitive impairments and motor arm function of patients with hemiparesis after stroke]. / Wspomagana komputerowo, skojarzona rehabilitacja zaburzen poznawczych i funkcji reki u osób z niedowladem polowiczym po udarze mózgu--doniesienie wstepne.

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the usefulness of the computer program made for the patients after stroke to treat their cognitive impairments and hemiparesis. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS: The experimental group involved 10 patients after stroke who were obliged to train on a computer every day during their three-week stay on the rehabilitation ward. The control group involved 10 patients after stroke who did not participate in any computer training during their rehabilitation process. The first part of the computer tasks trains the attention impairments and visual-motor co-ordination problems. We modified the joystick by adding special buttons to train movements of the wrist, thumb and forefinger of the impaired hand. Computer tasks are made in the way to stimulate both the cognitive functions and hand dexterity at the same time. RESULTS: This initial research shows a statistically significant improvement of the cognitive functions and hand dexterity among patients from the experimental group. According to these results we did not observe any significant improvement in the cognitive functions among patients who did not train on a computer (control group). CONCLUSIONS: The results of this research suggest the usefulness of this computer program in training cognitive impairments and visual-motor co-ordination as well as hand dexterity among the patients after stroke.