Electrical brain stimulation may help patients recover from a stroke by boosting rehabilitation therapy effects, a new study has found. The findings could lead to the improvement of rehabilitation programs and address the mounting costs and limited availability of therapists that often account for the limited number of programs offered to patients.
In the new study, researchers found that stroke patients who received electrical brain stimulation as part of their rehabilitation program performed several tasks better compared to patients not given the added boost.
For the study, the researchers enrolled 24 stroke patients who suffered an attack within the previous six months and who had difficulty moving one hand. After dividing them into two groups, one group underwent a nine-day rehabilitation program wherein the first 20 minutes were spent on an anodal transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS).
In this procedure, two electrodes were placed on the patient's heads and a direct current was applied. The electrical stimulation is believed to prepare the brain for learning.
The second group also underwent a nine-day rehabilitation trial but the electric current was only turned on during the first 10 minutes of the supposed 20 minutes in the first group. This leads to a placebo trial to gauge the effectivity of the electrical stimulation.
Three months after the rehabilitation program, the patients who received electrical brain stimulation scored higher in assessments that involved movements compared to the patients in the second group. Based on the brain scans, the patients in the first group showed higher activity in movement-related brain regions.
"If we take at face value what the results are telling us, it is that the stimulation doesn't completely change the way that the brain can produce a movement, in that it doesn't make you stronger, but it makes the brain better at being able to carry out a particular task like lifting up an object," said University of Oxford's Professor Heidi Johansen-Berg, one of the study's authors.
Johansen-Berg added that bigger trials are needed to confirm the associated benefits. Further studies are needed before the extended program can be offered to hospitals and stroke patients. However, the charity group Stroke Association's Shamim Quadir said that the new study is an important step in the creation of bigger trials.
"It is crucial that we find alternative ways to help improve the recovery rates from this devastating condition," said Quadir who highlighted stroke as one of the biggest causes of disability, leaving patients dependent on other people to help them go about their daily lives.
The research was published in the Science Translational Medicine journal on March 16.
