OBJECTIVES: Adding purpose to daily occupations to promote performance is a basic premise of occupational therapy. This study investigated the hypothesis that in persons with hemiplegia, two added-purpose occupations would elicit more exercise repetitions than a rote exercise. METHOD: In a counterbalanced order, 21 subjects with hemiplegia, aged 51 to 78 years, experienced all three conditions of a dynamic standing balance exercise that involved bending down, reaching, standing up, and extending the arm. One condition of added purpose involved the use of materials (small balls and target); a second added-purpose condition involved the subjects' imagination of the small balls. The third condition was the rote exercise without added purpose. RESULTS: A one-way analysis of variance for related measures indicated that the subjects performed significantly differently in each of the three conditions (p < 0.001). A Tukey multiple comparison test revealed that the subjects did significantly more exercise repetitions in the added-materials condition and in the imagery-based condition than in the rote exercise condition (p < 0.05). CONCLUSION: This study demonstrates how added purpose can enhance motor performance in persons with hemiplegia. Purpose may be effectively added to an exercise through the use of materials or imagery.
Copyright by the Amerrican Occupational Therapy Association Inc. Reprinted with permission.

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