The Benefits of Dynamic Splints and Rehabilitation Gloves for Stroke Recovery

Stroke is among the top three causes of death in the United States, but nothing comes close to stroke as the leading cause of long-term disability. After patients survive a stroke, their risk of having another stroke increases, along with their likelihood of suffering a serious disability as a result. However, medical and technological advances have made it easier to help patients cope and recover. Occupational therapy is an effective way to restore mobility and reduce future risks for stroke survivors.

Therapy for stroke survivors often involves “re-training” or reprogramming the brain after neurological damage. As we learn more about the relationship between the brain, muscles, and connective tissue, one stimulating innovation is emerging as a top tool for recovery. Today, many patients are relying on a stroke rehabilitation gloves & dynamic splints to reverse damage, restore mobility, and reduce pain after a stroke.

But how, exactly, does wearing these orthoses treat symptoms of stroke survivors? Truth is, there are many benefits for patients who incorporate a glove or a dynamic splint into their recovery process.

Benefits of Rehabilitation Gloves and Dynamic Splints For Stroke Recovery

Problems Stroke Can Cause

Especially with strokes, survivors can suffer from impaired function, weakness and spasticity. Spasticity causes involuntary muscle contractions in the arms and can even cause even short-term or long-term paralysis as the tendons and tissues around the muscles get tighter.

Strokes can really affect upper arm movements too. Survivors only use their affected upper limb approximately 3 hours per day.

Individuals who have not suffered a neurological injury use their dominant hand for an average of 9 hours per day. Patientsless than 14 days following stroke use their affected upper limb only 38 minutes out of a 9-hour day.

Shortening of muscles and connective tissue can start occurring within hours/days. Maintaining a shortened position for a prolonged period of time leads to fibrous adhesion formation, loss of sarcomeres and a loss of tissue extensibility.

There Is Hope After A Stroke

Fortunately, we can respond to spasticity, and lessened arm movements and muscle tone by harnessing the brain’s own plasticity. Cortical Plasticity, also known as neuroplasticity, is the brain’s remarkable ability to reorganize itself by forming new neural connections based on individual experiences, lifestyle and environment. It essentially is the brain’s ability to “re-program” itself through mass practice, task-oriented arm training.

To get these neuroplastic changes, patents participate in skill-dependent rather than simply use-dependent activities. Skill-dependent activities are specific and progressively challenging tasks whereas use-dependent activities are repetition tasks in the absence of a meaningful challenge or an activity that requires problem solving strategies.

With these skill-dependent activities cortical maps are continuously remodeled throughout life and after injury by experiences and learning in response to activity and behavior from the stroke survivor. Stimulated through this task training, the brain has the ability to reorganize and form new connections between the intact neurons. The healthy surrounding tissue takes over some of the functions of the damaged area of the brain.

This Is Where Stroke Rehabilitation Gloves and Dynamic Splints Come Into Place

Task-specific training with rehabilitation gloves and dynamic splits improve upper extremity function in individuals suffering from neurological injuries. Treatment options are limited for neurological clients who cannot effectively incorporate their hand for functional grasp and release activities. This is where dynamic splints can really help rehabilitation.

Dynamic Splints Help Train the Brain

If the hand and arm muscles are no longer functional, it’s especially important to re-learn basic functions first, such asgrasping and releasing objects. A stroke rehabilitation device like the SaeboFlex can make this process easier for some patients and possible for those who otherwise would have no function left.

For a vast majority of stroke survivors, especially ones with incomplete spinal cord injury, patients do not exhibit sufficient active wrist and/or finger extension to allow the hand to be functional. Stroke recovery gloves like SaeboFlex has the biomechanical advantage in allowing prehension grasp and release activities for individuals with moderate to severe hemiparesis.

Read the rest of this article on the Saebo blog here: http://www.saebo.com/benefits-rehabilitation-gloves-dynamic-splints-stroke-recovery/