Effect of six-month standardized tertiary rehabilitation program on the activities of daily living in stroke patients with hemiplegia

BACKGROUND： At present, there are many studies on the rehabilitation therapy of stroke patients with hemiplegia, but there is deficiency of corresponding standardized rehabilitation program. OBJECTIVE： To explore the effects of standardized tertiary rehabilitation on the activities of daily living in stroke patients with hemiplegia within 6 months after attack. DESIGN： A clinical observation. SETTING： Department of Rehabilitation Medicine, Huashan Hospital of Fudan University. PARTICIPANTS： Eighty-two outpatients and inpatients with acute stroke were selected from the Department of Neurology, Shanghai Huashan Hosptial from January 1999 to June 2003, including 49 males and 33 females, 40 - 80 years of age, with a mean age of （65 ±11） years old. Inclusive criteria： According to the diagnostic standards for cerebrovascular diseases set by Fourth National Academic Meeting for Cerebrovascular Disease in 1995, the patients were diagnosed as new attack of cerebral infarction or cerebral hemorrhage, and confirmed by CT or MRI to be initial patients; They should be accorded with the following conditions, including within 1 week after stabilization of life signs, Glasgow coma score 〉 8 points, 40 - 80 years of age, with disturbance of limb function. Informed consents were obtained from all the patients or their relatives. Exclusive criteria： Patients were excluded due to active liver disease, liver and kidney malfunction, congestive heart failure, malignant tumor, history of dementia, failure in respiratory function, tetraplegia; cerebral infarction or cerebral hemorrhage for more than 3 weeks; unable to be followed up due to in other cities and provinces; psychiatric history; deafness and muteness. According to the will of the patients or their relatives, the patients who accepted the standardized rehabilitation program were enrolled as the treatment group （n =42）, and the others as the control group （n =40）. Approval was obtained from the ethical committee of the hospital. METHODS： All the patients were given routine therapies of internal medicine after admission. According to the conditions of Brunnstom recovery 6-phase evaluation, the patients in the treatment group were trained with the pre-designed comprehensive standardized rehabilitation program for corresponding period. At early period （within about 1 month after attack）, the patients received rehabilitative interventions in the Department of Emergency or Department of Neurology, once a day, 45 minutes for each time, 5 times a week; At middle period （about 1 - 3 months after attack）, the patients received rehabilitative interventions in the rehabilitation ward or center, once to twice a day, 30 - 45 minutes for each time, 4 - 5 days a week; At late period （about 3 - 6 months after attack）, the patients received rehabilitative intervention mainly assisted by rehabilitation physician in the community, relatives and volunteers, 3 - 4 times a week, and they were followed in the house or outpatient department once every two weeks. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES： The patients were evaluated blindly by the same rehabilitation physician using scale of modified Barthel index at admission and 1, 3 and 6 months after attack respectively. RESULTS： Totally 82 patients with acute stroke were enrolled, and 3 cases in the treatment group missed, including 2 cases died at 1 month after admission, and 1 case refused the follow up l0 days later, all the others were involved in the analysis of results. The scores of modified Barthel index at corresponding time points after admission in the treatment group were all obviously higher than those in the control group （P 〈 0,01）, and the score differences were also obviously higher than those in the control group （P 〈 0,01）. The activities of daily living at admission and 1, 3 and 6 months after admission in the treatment group were 22,50%, 46.43%, 75,95% and 89,52% of that of normal people respectively, and those in the control group were 17.09%, 25,77%, 43,38% and 55,00% respectively, The activities of daily Diving at admission and 1, 3 and 6 months in the treatment group were 131.66%, 180.17%, 175.08% and 162.76% of those in the controlgroup. As compared with at admission, the percentage of the score difference to the total score at the ends of the 1^st, 3^rd and 6^th months were 23.93%, 53.45% and 67.02% in the treatment group, while 8.67%, 25.36% and 36.98% in the control group. CONCLUSION： Standardized tertiary rehabilitation can obviously promote the activities of daily living in stroke patients with hemiplegia.

Characteristics of basal ganglia aphasia after stroke and the rehabilitative interventions

OBJECTIVE: To introduce the characteristics of basal ganglia aphasia after stroke and the rehabilitative interventions. DATA SOURCES: Articles related to stroke, subcortical aphasia, basal ganglia aphasia and language rehabilitation published in Chinese from January 1988 to December 2005 were searched in Chinese journal full-text database (CJFD) using the Keywords of 'stroke, basal ganglia aphasia, language rehabilitation' in Chinese. Meanwhile, English articles about aphasia published from January 1982 to December 2005 were searched in and Pubmed database. Besides, several books associated with the contents were looked through manually. STUDY SELECTION: The data were checked primarily, the articles about the pathomechanism and neurolinguistic characteristics of basal ganglia aphasia, diagnostic methods of aphasia and language rehabilitation were selected, and those had no obvious relation with the above contents were excluded. Inclusive criteria: literatures explain the clinical characteristics of basal ganglia aphasia, neurolinguistic pathogenesis and methods of rehabilitation therapy in details. The repetitive studies were excluded. DATA EXTRACTION: Totally 95 literatures about basal ganglia aphasia were collected, including 31 about the clinical characteristics of basal ganglia aphasia, 45 about its neurolinguistic pathogenesis, 5 about the evaluation and classification of aphasia, and 14 about its rehabilitation therapy. Thirty accorded with the inclusive criteria were used for review, and the other 65 were excluded. DATA SYNTHESIS: Concisely introduced the definition, past investigation of basal ganglia aphasia after stroke, then dwelled on the multiplicity neurolinguistics characteristics. Aphasia evaluation was dependent upon clinical aphasic symptoms. The relationship between symptom and focus of infection was explored, and the mechanism of pathosis language behavior on basal ganglia aphasia patients was understood to provide consequence data that could authenticate the processing of language in brain. On the other hand, the method of rehabilitation on basal ganglia aphasia after stroke was explained. CONCLUSION: Basal ganglia aphasia is manifested as atypical aphasic symptom, the mechanism for the structure of basal ganglia in the speech formation should be further confirmed. It is effective to select pertinent language rehabilitation for basal ganglia aphasia after stroke.

FMT:A Potential Therapeutic and Rehabilitative Intervention for COVID-19

Coronavirus disease 2019(COVID-19),which was outbreak in December 2019 Wuhan,China,has spread to more than 100 countries.In addition to respiratory symptoms,COVID-19 can also cause some digestive symptoms such as nausea and diarrhea.As a variety of respiratory diseases which are associated with a dysbiosis in both airway microbiota and the intestinal microbiota,COVID-19 may cause digestive symptoms through a constant cross-talk between the system which is known as the Gut_Lung Axis.Additionally,lymphopenia and hypercytokinemia were also common in COVID-19 patients which suggest that COVID-19 could compromise the immune system.Given the fact that gut microbiota not only could maintain immune homeostasis and immune responses at local mucosal surfaces,but also has distal protective effects and protect against respiratory virus.FMT is an effective way to enhance immunity and would be a potential therapy for individuals with viral infection.However,currently no direct clinical evidence proved that modulation of gut microbiota has the therapeutic role in treatment of COVID-19,from the perspective of microbiota and immunity after viral infection,we speculate that targeting gut microbiota might be a new therapeutic option or at least adjuvant therapeutic choice.In this Personal View,we describe the five aspects:COVID-19 and compromised immunity system,Microbiota,immune system and viral infection,FMT,immunity and virus infection,potential application of FMT in the treatment of COVID-19.