Early and repetitive stimulation of the arm can substantially improve the long-term outcome after stroke : a 5-year follow-up study of a randomized trial

Background and Purpose— Several studies have investigated the effect of therapeutic interventions for the arm in the acute phase after stroke, with follow-ups at a maximum of 12 months. The aim of this study was to examine the effect of repetitive sensorimotor training of the arm at 5 years after stroke. Subjects and Methods— One hundred consecutive stroke patients were randomly allocated either to an experimental group that received daily additional sensorimotor stimulation of the arm or to a control group. The intervention period was 6 weeks. Assessments of the patients were made before, midway, and after intervention, and at 6 and 12 months after stroke. In this study, 62 patients were reassessed at 5 years after stroke. The Brunnstrom-Fugl-Meyer (BFM) test, Action Research Arm (ARA) test, and Barthel index (BI) were used as the primary outcome measures. Results— At the 5-year follow-up, there was a statistically significant difference for both the BFM and ARA tests in favor of the experimental group....