The Effect Of Transcutaneous Electrical Nerve Stimulation Combined With Bobath Inhibitory Technique On Post Stroke Spasticity.

Objective:The aim of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of combined Bobath-TENS therapy on spasticity and on gait velocity in subacute stroke patients.Design: A randomized controlled clinical trial study.Setting: Rehabilitation department of Tongji medical hospital. Subjects: Thirty subacute stroke patients with ankle plantar flexor spasticity. The mean age of the patients was 55.2 years (range 37 to 70 years) and mean duration of stroke was 4.46 months (range 3 to 6 months)Intervention: The patients were randomly assigned to two groups; fifteen patients each were assigned to the combination group and theBobath group. Patients in the combination group received Fifteen minutes of inhibitory Bobath techniques and a combination of 30 minutes of TENS on lower leg acupuncture points and inhibitory Bobath techniques was applied to another group for 4 weeks, 5 days a week. Main measures: MAS score of the affected ankle, Passive ankle joint dorsiflexion range of motion, gait speed, The Brunnstrom stages of motor recoveryResults: The combined therapy (G1) with TENS-Bobath showed extremely successful results in terms of selected parameters. All the parameters turned out to be statistically significant (P<0.05).Although, Bobath group (G2) was also statistically significant, but the level of significance was much marked in combination group.Conclusion: 20 sessions of TENS combined with Bobath decreased plantar flexor spasticity, and increased gait velocity significantly more than Bobath alone.