Medicine and Health Sciences Commons^™

Optimization Of Baseline Values For The Bionik Inmotion Arm/Hand Rehabilitation Robot, Marysol Cabello, Diego Rojano, Daniel Salinas, Ramiro Oquita, Victoria Cuello, Kelsey Potter-Baker

Research Symposium

Background: Clinical studies utilizing the Bionik InMotion Arm/Hand robot are increasing in recent years. However, there is a lack of standardized values from healthy participants that can be used to compare to patients with stroke or other neurodegenerative disorders. We aim to create this standardized set of values by employing the new Bionik InMotion Arm/Hand robot on healthy participants. Establishing normative values will allow our lab, and other laboratories, to have a baseline that can be used to track rehabilitation progress in patients with neurological disorders, such as stroke. Creating this standardization may also allow for more tailored rehabilitative approaches …

Evaluating Alternate Motor Pathway Changes Following A Stroke, Rama N. Shaath, Marylu Cabello, Daniel Salinas, Michael R. Dobbs, Kelsey Potter-Baker

Research Symposium

Background: Stroke is the fifth cause of death in the United States. Not only is stroke a leading cause of death but it is also a leading cause of long-term disability in the United States. Long-term impairments after stroke include gait instability, upper limb paralysis, sensory deficits, pain, depression, and cognitive impairments. The most common impairment is motor paresis of the upper and lower limb. Rehabilitation remains the gold standard in addressing motor paresis with the goal of enabling subjects to regain independence and daily living skills. Strokes often impact the crossed lateral corticospinal tract, by damaging the tract …

Spinal Cord Injury: What About The Brain?, Monica Lozano Garcia, Kelsey Baker

Research Symposium

Background: Recent research has suggested that the brain may also undergo neurodegeneration after a spinal cord injury (SCI). Here, we evaluated neurodegeneration in the brain of patients with SCI and related neurodegeneration to rehabilitation performance, spine degeneration, and motor function.

Methods: T1-weighted and diffusion-weighted images of 13 SCI patients and 13 healthy controls were obtained. We evaluated fractional anisotropy in the motor cortex (MC), the sulci in front of the MC, the posterior limb of the internal capsule (PLIC), and the cerebral peduncles (CP) in both hemispheres to determine neurodegeneration. Statistical analysis was performed between patients with SCI …

Optimization Of A Protocol For Temporary Deafferentation And Proof-Of-Concept Of Effectiveness For Upper Limb Rehabilitation, Monica Lozano Garcia, Kelsey A. Potter-Baker, Chelsea Erazo Macias, Victoria Cuello

Research Symposium

Background: Temporary deafferentation (TD) is a technique that uses short-term anesthesia, to inactivate sensation pathways from stronger muscles so that the brain releases inhibition that was placed on weaker muscles, thereby strengthening them. Unfortunately, there are many methods to do TD, and an optimized protocol for TD has yet to be fully developed. Here, we sought to optimize a protocol for TD using 5% lidocaine cream. Then, as a proof-of-concept, we evaluated hand dexterity and muscle strength was improved after a single session of TD. We hypothesized that triceps would show a gain in strength, with minimal changes in hand …

The Effectiveness Of Temporary Deafferentation For Upper Limb Rehabilitation, Chelsea Erazo Macias, Daniel Salinas, Monica Lozano Garcia, Victoria Cuello, Kelsey Baker

Research Symposium

Background: Temporary deafferentation (TD) is an approach that has been investigated in rehabilitation practices to improve motor function in people with spinal cord injuries. The overall goal of temporary deafferentation is to voluntarily reduce sensory input into the nervous system to improve efferent output. Temporary deafferentation is typically achieved using either topical or injectable anesthetics. Recently, our group sought to optimize a protocol for temporary deafferentation using topical anesthetic cream, and results suggested that temporary deafferentation was achieved 50 minutes after anesthetic cream application. Here, we aimed to determine if our optimized protocol impacted limb electromyography (EMG) after the intervention. …