Electrical therapy improves mobility after stroke

Reported by Susan Aldridge, PhD, medical journalist

The addition of functional electrical stimulation to conventional rehabilitation improves walking after stroke.
Functional electrical stimulation (FES) uses mild electric current to stimulate the muscles. It's been said to have a role in stroke rehabilitation and a team at Hong Kong Polytechnic now report upon its use.

They compared three groups - 46 patients in total - one on standard rehab, one on rehab plus FES, and the third on rehab and placebo FES. They received treatment for three weeks, starting shortly after having the stroke. Those receiving FES did better on several measures of lower limb functioning. After treatment, all of the FES group could walk and 85 per cent of them went home. In the other groups, only half returned home. Further work is now needed to see whether FES can work with a wide range of stroke patients.

Source
Stroke January 2005

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