Proprioceptive Stimulation With Manual Bilateral Rhythmic Exercise in Post-stroke Patients

During the PBT patient will stay in supine position with the upper limbs positioned in symmetric posture. He/She will be asked to move both limbs with the same frequency performing bilateral flexion-extension of one of the upper limb districts according to the available free ROM of the target joint. The movement execution of the affected arm will be supported by the physiotherapist performing passive movement at the same rhythm, as the one executed with the unaffected side. Patient will be asked to focus the attention on the movement performed against gravity, which will be reinforced by a verbal command. Afterwards, the physiotherapist will fully support movement execution coherently with the patient's movement initialization. The active movement performed voluntarily by the patient with unaffected limb will be considered as the reference movement, that the physiotherapist has to emulate passively, by synchronization of passive movement executed in phase with the affected side.

The patients randomized to the CNT group will be asked to perform exercises for postural control, exercises for hand pre-configuration, exercises for the stimulation of manipulation and functional skills, exercises for proximal-distal coordination. All the exercises will be performed with or without the assistance of a physiotherapist. The upper limb motricity will be trained with progressive complexity.