Improving Motor Functions 24 Years After Stroke

Interviews Patient's Success

Anita Rebernik had a stroke 24 years ago when she was 27 years old. The stroke affected here left side. Read the interview with Christoph Guger who explains the patient’s improvements and the importance of a high accuracy during recoverix therapy.

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How was the recoveriX therapy done?

Christoph Guger: Mrs. Rebernik did the usual 25 recoveriX sessions each lasting 40 min training time. She reached in the first session about 85% classification accuracy which shows that she was motivated and doing the task correctly. Her grand average accuracy was 92.2% for all the 25 sessions. This is a very important results because we know from our group study that patients that have an accuracy above 80% improve on average in 8 points in Fugl-Meyer Score. Additionally, passive joint motion improved, she had less pain and more sensation because of the therapy.

Accuracy Rebernik recoverix.com

Are you looking also at other EEG parameters beside the event-related desynchronization?

Christoph Guger: We are also using our mindBEAGLE brain assessment system before and after recoveriX therapy. The mindBEAGLE is a brain-computer interface system that allows to assess brain functions. We are running auditory P300 (AEP), vibro-tactile P300 (VTP) and motor imagery (MI) experiments.

The P300 is an EEG marker for attention and each tests needs between 2.5 min to 8 min of time. We are also using the BCI classification accuracy as parameter of how good a patient can do the task. In her case the auditory P300 paradigm reached 100% which shows that the patient has attention and can discriminate low from high tones. The vibro-tactile P300 (VTP) assessment also showed 100% accuracy which show that the patient’s brain is able to concentrate on stimuli of the right or left hand correctly.
The mindBEAGLE Assessment with Mrs. Rebernik shows vibro-tactile P300 improvement for left and right hand stimulation after recoveriX therapy.

mindBEAGLE Brain Assessment AEP VTP2 Left Hand VTP2 Right Hand
1. Pre-Testing  100 95 70
2. Pre-Testing 100 100 100
1. Post-Testing 100 100 75
2. Post-Testing 100 100 80
3. Post-Testing 100 100 100

How was the final outcome for Mrs. Rebernik?

Christoph Guger: Mrs. Rebernik improved her total Fugl-Meyer Scale by 11 points to 50 in total. The upper extremity function improved by 7 points to 26. Wrist function stayed constant, hand function improved by 3 points to 12 and coordination and speed improved by 1 point to 5. The lower limb Fugl-Meyer Score improved by 3 points to 29. Beside that the patient improved also her Barthel index to the maximum of 100 points and reduced the Fahn Tremor scale from 5 to 2 which is a very nice result. This shows again that it is very important to get the accuracy above 80%. Mrs. Rebernik even improved the Fugl-Meyer Scale by 11 points within only about 15 hours of training and this was achieved 24 years after the stroke.

Fugl Meyer Score 2 Rebernik recoverix.com