Effectiveness of trunk dissociation retrainer as a tool in trunk rehabilitation in hemiplegia

Abstract

Trunk dissociation is a pattern of movement that takes place involuntarily newlineduring a human movement. They occur during every functional activity of an newlineindividual depending on the magnitude of movement. It involves the coordinated and newlinesequential movements of upper limbs, trunk and lower limbs. This synergistic newlinemovement is lost in case of a hemiplegic subject where there is a significant newlineasymmetry between two sides of the body. In present day scenario trunk newlinedissociation is being trained by physiotherapists, manually guiding the body newlinesegments. As we perceived that, such intricate movement that accompanies normal newlinehuman movement may not be trained effectively when performed with manual newlineguidance. Hence, we strongly felt that there is a need for devising equipment to train newlinetrunk dissociation where the subjects can perform the movement without assistance. newlineThe device will also reduce the time and energy cost of physiotherapist in clinical set newlineup. Thus, there is also a strong need to test the stability, patient comfort and safety newlinefeatures of the device and also its efficacy in various aspects of stroke rehabilitation. newlineHence we strongly felt that there was a strong need for the study. newlineAim newlineThe aim of the study was (i) To design and develop TDR as safe and newlineconvenient equipment for treating hemiplegic subjects, which can help newlinephysiotherapists to conserve energy and time. (ii) To study the effect of TDR in newlineimproving trunk performance, gait, balance, reaching, and functional activities in newlinehemiplegic subjects. (iii) To study the effect of TDR in restoring symmetrical weight newlinetransmission in lower limbs of hemiplegic subjects. (iv) To analyse the follow up of newlinethe improvement gained following conventional, MTDR and TDR training after newlineminimum 6 months. From this study it is concluded that TDR is a safe and effective tool for newlinetraining trunk dissociation patterns in hemiplegic rehabilitation. TDR can be used as newlinean effective replacement for the existing manual methods of training trunk newlinedissociation, for a better and faster rehabilitation