Effectiveness of Mirror Therapy on hand function improvement among patients with chronic stroke.

Abstract

Background: Stroke is a leading neurological problem & one of the most vulnerable cause of long term disability & death which is defined by WHO as a rapidly developed clinical sign of focal disturbance of cerebral function of presumed vascular origin and of more than 24 hours duration. And Mirror therapy is a simple, inexpensive, and patient-oriented treatment approach used for the rehabilitation of stroke, phantom limb pain, amputee patients etc. Purpose: The purpose of the study was to explore the effectiveness of mirror therapy with conventional physiotherapy compare to only conventional physiotherapy for chronic stroke patients. Objectives: To find out the effectiveness of Mirror Therapy on chronic stroke patients after receiving both mirror therapy and conventional physiotherapy at neurology outpatient unit of CRP. Methodology: Experimental study design was used in this study. 10 patients with Chronic Stroke were randomly allocated into two groups from outdoor neurological unit, CRP. Among them 5 patients were assigned into trial group received Mirror Therapy with conventional physiotherapy and another 5 into control group received only conventional physiotherapy. Total treatment sessions were 12 comprising of 5 sessions per week for 4 weeks. Single blinding procedure was used during data collection. Analysis of data: Unpaired t test was used for between groups. Wilcoxon signed rank test was used for within group improvement of function using SPSS version 20. Results: In this study, the results found the calculated t values (0.312, 0.171, 0.482) were less than “Table value or Critical t value” that is 2.306, p value was more than α level (0.05), therefore the test was not significant, means result due to variation or by chance is >5% and confidence level is <95%, and thus difference between two groups in their effectiveness is due to variation or by chance. Therefore we cannot reject the null hypothesis, rather it is accepted. Conclusion: This experimental study showed that mirror therapy with conventional physiotherapy was not more effective than conventional physiotherapy alone for patients with chronic stroke. Key words: Mirror Therapy, Stroke, Hand function, Conventional physiotherapy.