Evaluation of the effects of rehabilitation exercise on cerebral infarction with 99 Tc m -ECD SPECT brain imaging

Objective To investigate the therapeutic effects of motor therapy on hemiplegia with SPECT brain perfusion imaging. Methods The study population consisted of 59 patients with cerebral infarction,and all patients were treated with motor therapy.Among them, 30 cases were assigned to undertake single bridging exercise and 29 cases passive exercise. SPECT brain perfusion imaging was performed before and after motor therapy under the same condition, and the regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF) changes were compared and analysed with visual and semi quantitative methods; in addition, the relationship between rCBF changes and scores of Fugl Meyer or Barthel index were also analysed. Results After motor therapy, various degrees of radioactivity increase were compared with the pretreatment radioactivity hypoperfusion in patients with cerebral infarction, and showed that motor therapy could evidently improve rCBF of regional hypoperfusion. The posttreatment rCBF was higher than the pretreatment level ( P 0.01), and the rCBF of group of single bridging was higher than that of passive exercise group. And the changes of rCBF were all significant after motor therapy. In addition,the variation of the rCBF after motor therapy was positively correlated with the variation of Fugl Meyer and Barthel score. Conclusions SPECT brain perfusion imaging can serve as a useful method for evaluating the effectiveness of motor therapy in cerebral infarction rehabilitation. The single bridging exercise and the passive exercise are both beneficial to brain rehabilitation, but the former improves the rCBF in lesions better than the later does.