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영어

The purpose of this study is to identify the effects of a whole-body tilt exercise with mental practice for treating hemispatial neglect. We used a single-subject experimental design alternating with multiple baselines. Three stroke patients with hemispatial neglect participated in this study. The severity of hemispatial neglect and balance ability were measured during baseline and intervention sessions. The whole-body tilt exercise was performed by using a device that allows the body to tilt 20° from the neutral upright position. Mental practice consisted of 5 min of relaxation, main whole-body tilt imagination, and normalization phases. The results were assessed by using the line bisection test, modified Barthel index(MBI), which were separately implemented. For subjects 1, 2, and 3, the repective average hemispatial neglect score decreased by 9.4, 16.2 and 13.8 mm after the whole-body tilt exercise with mental practice; their average MBI increased by 55, 48 and 15 points, respectively. When Subjects performed the whole-body tilt exercise with mental practice, they exhibited greater improvements in the severity of hemispatial and MBI. These findings suggest that a whole-body tilt exercise alone alleviates hemispatial neglect symptoms but the addition of mental practice is even more beneficial.