Stroke rehab. robotic glove

About stroke Questions and recommendations
1

Hello everybody.

Has anyone tried to use a robotic rehab glove,and to what success please?

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2

Not needed one myself but try looking in the link below as someone else asked about a while ago.

3

I am interested in this too - have looked online at Music Glove put out by Flint Rehab, but it is pretty expensive, and no-one here had used it. It looked brilliant, but I didn’t know if it would really work for me - if it was as effective as they said, why wasn’t everyone using it?

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5

Thanks for your message, this would help to keep fingers going i.e. maintain muscle lenght but would not help to regain movement. I hope this helps.

Kind regards

Kusal Stroke OT

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7

Dear Simon,

Thanks for your reply. What you are saying is perfectly true both from theory and perpective of a service user (I am an OT, but I have met 1200+ stroke survivors). The four stages that you have described is correct, and after stroke the whole hand moves like a unit (association), and there are steps that I suggest to people I treat to overcome this- slow process but definitely works. I have not used a music glove, but from the description for it to work you have to have pretty good level of finger movement - in particular finger extension. For me, the gloves are a comfort tool rather than treatment entity. I was involved in the development phase of neuroball 1 and neuroball 2, I agree with your views. I just completed a 2 day training at UCLH- basically, the hands on traditional therapy is still the best. Upper limb rehab after stroke is an art and that is the bottom line.

I hope that this helps.

Take care
Kusal
Stroke OT

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9

Hi Simon,

Thanks for your post.

I would be honest with you, I have not used all the gloves - but I would like to say one thing, the main course of treatment still remains traditional exercises/massage and so on, the technology is an adjunct to traditional therapy only, they have not reached the point that they can replace traditional therapy. People try to sell all sorts of stuff. I agree with your summary of neuroball. The music glove is in the same category but slightly different. The questions is do have any tightness or spasticity- if you are experiencing any of above, I would suggest to deal with them before trailing anything. All the robotics has the danger of increasing impairments through compensation.

I hope that I have made sense.

Kind regards

Kusal, Stroke OT

10

I have also answered your question re: why I have joined the forum in a different post. I hope this makes sense. I am different, when I treat hand I start with foot prep - most people would not do this.

Kind regards

Kusal, Stroke OT

12

Hi Simon,

Thanks for your response. I am glad to hear that you recognise the signs of associated reaction and you are taking step to deal with it. In my view associated reactions stems from postural imbalance or weakness, if you are getting associated reaction, I would suggest

  • Dealing with trunk weakness: e.g. bridging with one or two legs
  • Focusing on scapula: through massage shoulder shurg and depression, scpaula retraction and massage
  • Stretching pecs
    I guess your tunk will be rotated and pelvis would be dropped on the affected side.

It would be nice to catch up with you at some point.

I hope that I am making sense :slight_smile:

Take care

Kusal, Stroke OT

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