Effect of Hand Dominance on Functional Status and Recovery of Hand in Stroke Patients

Stroke is characterized by hemiplegia, including motor deficits and various neurological manifestations mainly in contralateral half of the body lasting more than 24 hours with a presumed vascular cause. The goal of stroke rehabilitation is to make people independent and this is possible with appropriate functioning of the affected hand and upper extremity. Stroke patients have to depend on the nondominant hand when the effected hand is the dominant side. However this disadvantage might end up in better results with more effort for recovery of the dominant hand. In this study, we aimed to understand the effect of hand dominance on both functional loss and regain after stroke. 18 patients with right or left hemiplegia participated in the study. Patients were grouped as dominant side and nondominant side hemiplegic (groups D and ND). Patients were evaluated in the 1 st week, 1 st month and 3 rd month. Brunnstrom stages, Motricity index, MAS and FIM, NHPT and hand grip strength were recorded for every patient in every visit. None of the parameters showed significant difference between two groups. Only NHPT used to assess fine manual dexterity revealed a significant difference in the final analysis. Correlation analysis displayed a positive correlation between hand grip strength with FIM and pinch grip strength with NHPT. We concluded that there was no significant difference in functional improvement between dominant and non-dominant side hemiplegic groups during the first three months after stroke. However longer follow ups and larger patient groups are needed to clarify the effect of hand dominance on long term functional status.