earticle

영어

In stroke rehabilitation, motor deficits have traditionally been in great attention owing to their influences on functional recovery, and in such reason, therapeutic focus of a variety of approaches should include the concepts of motor relearning. However, clinicians’ interest was not in sensory rehabilitation after stroke despite its essential role to guide normal motor control during daily routine tasks. Accordingly, this study aimed to demonstrate beneficial information for stroke rehabilitation to clinicians as well as provide the description about natures of sensory deficits after stroke and their effects to rehabilitation. Evidences support the effects of sensory rehabilitation therapy to improve sensory ability and hand function of patients with post-stroke hemiparesis. In particular, improvement of discriminative sense and proprioception may be more helpful to increase the level of functional activity. Although many studies have suggested the effects of various treatment methods to enhance sensory function, there was no actually apparent description about the effect size of a sensory re-education using rehabilitation approaches and its influence on physiological mechanism of sensory system. Recent systemic review focused on the necessity of further studies for defining the evaluation criteria with treatment-specific base in subject selection and the assessment of treatment effects appropriately. In general, the benefits of non-specific sensory stimulation have been well known in clinical setting; however, it’s not clear whether it can promote sensory function constantly. Therefore, further studies must be taken under special efforts to develop effective treatment methods for improving sensory deficits of patients with post-stroke hemiparesis. This study provides valuable information for future studies that explore favorable therapeutic solutions of sensory impairments after stroke.