Objective
The purpose of this study was to evaluate the motor recovery of initial and plateau period in the patients with subcortical stroke lesion which were different locations.

Method
We studied the 42 stroke patients with subcortical lesions who had been admitted to the Department of Rehabilitation Medicine from 1998 to 2000, retrospectively. Patients were divided into four groups according to the information from brain CT or MRI; Group 1: basal ganglia, group 2: anterior limb of internal capsule and/or basal ganglia, group 3: posterior limb of internal capsule and/or basal ganglia and group 4: thalamus only. Quantitative assessments of motor recovery using the Brunnstrom stage and results were correlated with sites of lesion.

Results
1) Brunnstrom stages at initial and plateau period were the highest in the patients with thalamic lesion and the lowest in the patients with posterior limb of internal capsule and/or basal ganglia lesion. The patients with thalamic lesion showed higher stage than the patients with basal ganglia with anterior limb lesion in hand and low extremity (p＜0.05). 2) Significant motor recovery was occurred in all patients except the lesion located in thalamus (p＜0.05).

Conclusion
There were significant differences of motor recovery at plateau period in the patients with thalamic lesions comparing with basal ganglia with anterior limb lesion about hands and lower extremities and patients with basal ganglia and/or capsular lesion showed good motor recovery.