MOTOR ABILITY AND BRAIN HEMISPHERE IN POST-STROKE PATIENTS: IS THERE A RELATIONSHIP?

Abstract

Motor impairment is common in post stroke patients and it is considered a barrier to physical exercise. There are differences between the hemispheres affected by stroke in language, emotions and cognitive aspects. However, there are few studies that verify the differences in global motor impairment. The aim of this study was to evaluate the differences between right and left brain hemisphere affected by stroke according to motor ability and neurological state. 135 patients, aged 60 years (± 15.28), 80 male were evaluated. We performed the Fugl-Meyer Motor Scale (FM), Modified Rankin Scale (MRS), Barthel Index (BI) and National Institute of Health Stroke Scale (NIHSS). Patients were divided in two groups: RH with 64 patients with stroke in the right hemisphere, and LH with71 patients with stroke in the left hemisphere. The both groups did not present statistical differences between age and time after stroke. RH showed a median of 120.8 (± 26.8) for FM, 1.6 (± 1.2) for MRS, 91.5(± 7.7) for BI, and 1.5 (±1.2) for NIHSS. LH showed a median of 115.9 (±33.4) for FM, 1.7 (±1.2) for MRS, 88.9 (± 23.6) for BI, and 1.7 (±1.3) for NIHSS. Our study showed that motor ability and neurological status did not differ according to the brain hemisphere affected by stroke.