Chronometry of Mentally Vs. Physically Practiced Tasks on People with Stroke

Chronometry of Mentally vs. Physically Practiced Tasks on People with Stroke

A review of mentally practiced vs. physically practiced trial using people with stroke

Michelle England

Introduction to Occupational Therapy

Instructor: Alyson Denton

November 28, 2012

In this research paper chronometry is the scientific term for mentally practice task that will be tried on participants who have been affected by a chronic stroke, which has affected their motor movements to be able to everyday occupations. Researchers will also be using physical practice tasks on the participants as well to determine their effectiveness in treating people who have suffered a chronic stroke. Therefore, these two different practice tasks were performed on eighteen volunteers who were selected from cognitive criteria for the purpose of this trial. "The volunteers were then ask to do five rehearsed tasks first on their affected arm and then on their unaffected arm, which was timed to see how they would perform using the mentally practiced task versus the physically practice task and then compared the times based on the researchers data ( Wu.et.al.2010)."

"Chronometry is a term used to describe a mental practice task using neuroimaging. It is a noninvasive technique, which is usually without voluntary movements. Mental practice is a cognitively rehearsed task that does not require any form of physical movement from the participant. Therefore, during mental practice the muscular and neural activations are observed (Bakker.et.al.1982; 1996; 1998)." The fact-based of this are to use mental practice as a strategy to physical practice for the participants who have suffered a chronic stroke. By utilizing neuroimaging to monitor effect of mental practice engagement when the volunteer participants perform these five tasks that they rehearsed. "Therefore, while the participants are engaging doing the tasks the research assistant is timing to see how long it takes someone with a stroke to complete the require task versus physically doing the task that is ask of them(Wu. Et.al.2010)."

Once these tasks are performed, they then compare the times for each task during the mental practice and physical practice to see which task took longer to achieve. The researchers believe that chronometry presents a very positive strategy in a clinical setting with people who have suffered a stroke. On the other hand, "to see if this mental practice strategy is indeed plausible the researchers must first try this clinical strategy on healthy volunteers and in turn see if a healthy person when timed doing the exact five tasks using mental practice strategy had equal time during physical practice strategy. The researcher's data shown that the time it took to perform the tasks were similar whether it was performed mentally or physically practice motor movements (Wu.et.al.2010)."

"In this study, they examined whether this effect also holds true for participants with stroke who mentally and physically practice movements with their arms (Wu.et.al.2010)." The researchers determined that mental practice chronometry was not applied to examine the timing for imagined versus physical motor movements in participants who have indeed suffered from chronic stroke. Therefore, the researchers decided to use three hypotheses: "first, participants would take less time to complete tasks in the mental practice trial. Second, participants would be more likely to succeed in completing the tasks in the mental trial; third, the efficiency (for time taken) of mental practice intervention might be valid by different types of stroke (Wu.et.al.2010)."

"The researchers used a cross-sectional study design to determine the association between mentally and physical practice tasks for participants who have suffered from a chronic stroke (Wu.et.al.2010)." The researchers put advisements in therapy clinics, and even therapists received these advisements. Once they received good amount of volunteers they preceded to screen the people by using certain inclusion criteria, which are based on past data from studies. The participants were gauged by having their upper extremities scaled by the Fugal-Meyer-Scale, which is a three point system. The researchers were confidence method of testing the participants for their trials. "This test is based on (0= cannot perform; 1- performs partially; 2= performs fully). Therefore, by using these criteria tests they were able to obtain eighteen participants for their study trails. The procedures the participants are to perform are rehearsed from experience (Di Fabio.et.al.1990; 1997)." The five tasks that were described to them was "(1) Reaching for and grasping a cup; (2) Turning a page in a book; (3) Using a hairbrush or comb; (4) Proper use of a writing utensil; (5) Proper use of an eating utensil (Wu.et.al.2010)."

The researchers wanted in the study to have their participants rehearsed and practiced for these five tasks. This was to control the experience doing these selected tasks. Next, each person that was selected for the study was taken into a quiet room and then a research assistant would go over all the rules of the procedure tasks that are going to be performing. The research proceeded to lay out the selected objects on the table in the front of the person to reorient them in the study tasks. The researcher moved forward by telling the participants that they will be getting three tries, which will be timed during each of the five tasks.

The participant would listen for the command "ready go" the volunteer would precede to do the tasks by during physically practice. The goal of the first task was to physical try to reach and grasp the handle of the cup that in front of them. However, with their unaffected arm first then doing the task again with their affected arm. The participant was given a one-minute break rest between each task and a three-minute break was given in between the last task. The research assistant would time the participant during this time and record the data by using a stopwatch (Wu.et.al.2010).

The participants would repeat this process again while using neuroimaging for the mental practice motor movement. The only difference this was the research assistant would have the volunteer say either "done" or by raising their unaffected arm. Again, each process was timed with a stopwatch and the data was recorded. By during the physical practice first and then the mental practice second the participants underwent Occupational Therapy of the five study