To investigate the immediate therapeutic effects of mental singing while walking intervention on gait disturbances in hemiplegic stroke patients.
Eligible, post-stroke, hemiplegic patients were prospectively enrolled in this study. The inclusion criteria were a diagnosis of hemiplegia due to stroke, and ability to walk more than 10 m with or without gait aids. Each patient underwent structured music therapy sessions comprising 7 consecutive tasks, and were trained to sing in their mind (mental singing) while walking. Before, and after training sessions, gait ability was assessed using the 10-Meter Walk Test (10MWT), the Timed Up and Go test (TUG), gait velocity, cadence and stride length.
Twenty patients were enrolled in the interventions. Following the mental singing while walking intervention, significant improvement was observed in the 10MWT (13.16±7.61 to 12.27±7.58; p=0.002) and the TUG test (19.36±15.37 to 18.42±16.43; p=0.006). Significant improvement was also seen in gait cadence (90.36±29.11 to 95.36±30.2; p<0.001), stride length (90.99±33.4 to 98.17±35.33; p<0.001) and velocity (0.66±0.45 to 0.71±0.47; p<0.002).
These results indicate the possible effects of mental singing while walking on gait in patients diagnosed with hemiplegic stroke.
Citations
To investigate the therapeutic effect of neurologic music therapy (NMT) and speech language therapy (SLT) through improvement of the aphasia quotient (AQ) in post-stroke aphasic patients.
Twenty-one post-stroke, nonfluent aphasia patients who had ischemic/hemorrhagic stroke on radiologic evaluation were divided into the NMT and SLT groups. They received NMT and SLT for 1 month. Language function was assessed by Korean version-Western Aphasia Battery before and after therapy. NMT consisted of therapeutic singing and melodic intonation therapy, and SLT consisted of language-oriented therapy.
Significant improvements were revealed in AQ, repetition, and naming after therapy in the NMT group and improvements in repetition in the SLT group of chronic stroke patients (p<0.05). There were significant improvements in language ability in the NMT group of subacute stroke patients. However, there was no significant improvement in the SLT group of subacute stroke patients.
We concluded that the two therapies are effective treatments in the chronic stage of stroke and NMT is effective in subacute post-stroke aphasic patients.
Citations
Objective: We used music as a rhythmic cue in gait training of patients with hemiplegia and analysed its effect on gait parameters.
Method: Twenty hemiplegic patients were included in the study. Gait cycle, foot contact area, and center of pressure pathway were measured by F-scan with and without music. Four subjects were followed after 3 weeks of gait training using rhythmic cue with music.
Results: 1) In involved limb, stance phase was slightly increased from 65.8⁑9.9% to 67.8⁑7.9%, and single limb support was changed from 17.1⁑6.3% to 17.2⁑6.2%, without statistical significance. 2) Stance and swing symmetry was slightly increased from 0.77⁑0.13 and 0.52⁑0.21 to 0.83⁑0.09 and 0.54⁑0.16 respectively, without statistical significance. 3) Foot contact area and anteroposterior distance of center of pressure were not changed significantly. 4) All 4 subjects who were followed after 3 weeks showed increased single limb support of involved limb (from 14.5% to 18.8%) and swing symmetry (from 0.47 to 0.67).
Conclusion: Though it was not proved to be effective for every hemiplegics, use of rhythmic cue with music in gait training may be helpful in some patients. Further study is needed to confirm these results.
First
Prev
