AIM: To investigate the effective therapy for functional dysfunction after acute cerebral infarction. METHODS: Totally 208 cases of acute cerebral infarction with hemiplegia were enrolled by the Department of Neurology of Zhongshan Hospital Affiliated to Medical College of Wuhan University from January 2002 to May 2004. They were all primary stroke patients within 72 hours of onset and scored zero on Fugl-Meyer assessment (FMA). Patients with disorder of consciousness and aphasia were excluded. All the subjects were assigned randomly to treatment group (110 cases) and control group (98 cases). Treatment group was treated by Levodopa and Benserazide Hydrochloride, mecobalamin in combination with acupuncture and physiotherapy, and control group was treated by routine medicine treatment. On days 13 and 31, the simplified FMA was adopted as criteria for assessment of the therapeutic effect and double-blind controlled study was performed between the treatment and control groups. RESULTS: On day 16, FMA < 50 was found in 14 cases of treatment group, and in 16 of control group; on day 31, there were 13 and 15 in the two groups respectively, and there were no significant difference between the two groups (p > 0.05). There were significant differences between the two groups of cumulative score for FMA > 50 points (p < 0.05), and the differences became more and more significant with time passed. CONCLUSION: The therapy of Levodopa and Benserazide Hydrochloride, mecobalamin in combination with acupuncture and physiotherapy is an effective method for motor functional recovery of patients with acute cerebral infarction. The mechanism maybe relates to activating the proliferation of neurocytes and inducing neurocytes to participate in injury repair.

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