Silly Walks Help Stroke Victims Relearn Motor Skills

[MrBogosity]

http://www.lockergnome.com/news/2011/10/20/silly-walks-help-stroke-victims-relearn-motor-skills/

As it turns out, there really is a Ministry of Silly Walks! And researchers at the Kennedy Krieger Institute in Baltimore have found a purpose for them. All right, they don't technically use the word silly, preferring the rather more politically correct word unusual. But I think we can agree on what they really mean.

Silly Walks Help Stroke Victims Relearn Motor SkillsThe traditional way to rehabilitate someone who has undergone a stroke or incurred a neurological condition that disrupts their ability to walk is to have them practice. And then practice some more. The practicing continues until progress — it is hoped — is made and the patient can walk again. The process is long, stressful, arduous, and sometimes painful. But these scientists decided to try a different approach and discovered that having a patient alternate between a normal walking pattern and an unusual (silly!) one forces the brain to learn from mistakes and adjust more naturally.

Don't worry. These patients aren't ordered to do any face-endangering, John Cleese high kicks as therapy. The work is done on a split-belt treadmill, where one side can be programmed to go faster than the other, and vice versa, per the method of treatment determined. During testing, patients were split into two groups: One was given 15 minutes of constant exposure to the belts moving at different speeds, and the other (switch) group experienced 15 minutes of differing speeds interspersed with identical speeds. 24 hours later, it was discovered that the switch group was able to resume the unusual (silly!) walk with greater ease than the members of the first group.

As researcher Amy Bastian says: "The people in the switch group 'learned to learn' by experiencing more of the awkward, limping leg pattern that occurs right after a switch in speeds."

[kiri2tsubasa]

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You know people will post this because of this article.