OBJECTIVES to establish the reliability of the modified Ashworth scale for measuring muscle tone in a range of muscle groups (elbow, wrist, knee and ankle; flexors and extensors) and of the Medical Research Council scale for measuring muscle power in the same muscle groups and their direct antagonists. DESIGN a cross-sectional study involving repeated measures by two raters. We estimated reli...

Stroke welcomes Letters to the Editor and will publish them, if suitable, as space permits. They should not exceed 750 words (including references) and may be subject to editing or abridgment. Please submit letters in duplicate, typed double-spaced. Include a fax number for the corresponding author and a completed copyright transfer agreement form (available online at The report from Lundstrom ...

OBJECTIVE To develop a clinical and instrumental protocol to assess the postural and dynamic effects following treatment with botulinum neurotoxin A in children with cerebral palsy affected by spastic equinus. DESIGN Open study, in which every patient served as his or her own control. PATIENTS Ten sequential children with cerebral palsy and spastic dynamic equinus foot. METHODS Botulinum ...

OBJECTIVE To investigate the long-term efficacy of neuromuscular electrical stimulation in enhancing motor recovery in the upper extremities of stroke patients. METHODS A total of 46 patients with stroke were assigned to a neuromuscular electrical stimulation group or a control group. All patients received a standard rehabilitation programme. Patients in the neuromuscular electrical stimulati...

spasticity is one of the common complications in upper motor neuron lesions and without appropriate treatment it causes disturbances in movement pattern. assessments of patients are effective in patient`s management. modified ashworth scale (mas) is one of the criteria in qualitative assessment of spasticity, and there are lots of controversies about its validity. the purpose of this study is t...

The effect of functional electrical stimulation (FES) training on body composition, assessed by computed tomography, and the effect of spasticity, assessed by both objective and subjective measures, are evaluated. Fifteen motor-complete spinal-cord-injured men participated in the study. Eight of the 15 subjects undertook FES cycling 3 times weekly for 6 months. Whole body computed tomography sc...

[Purpose] Investigation of the efficacy of robot-mediated therapy of the upper limb in patients with chronic stroke, in task-oriented training activities of daily living in real environment. [Subjects and Methods] 20 patients, each more than one year post-stroke (13-71 months) received 20 sessions of upper limb robot-mediated therapy. No other treatment was given. Each therapy session consisted...

A retrospective study of 241 clinical cases, utilizing over 1800 Functional Electrical Stimulation (FES) treatments to alleviate epaxial muscle spasms, showed that almost 80% (191) of the horses had a 1-grade improvement in muscle spasms after 2 FES treatments, based on the Modified Ashworth Scale adapted to horses. In addition, 60% (142) of these horses showed a sustained improvement for a min...

BACKGROUND Measurement of spasticity is a difficult and unresolved problem, partly due to its complexity and the fact that there are many factors involved. In the assessment of spasticity in the pediatric disabled population, methods that are easily used in practice are ordinal scales that still lack reliability. A prospective cross-sectional observational study was planned to determine the rel...