OBJECTIVE: To assess the efficacy of functional electrical stimulation (FES) in the rehabilitation of hemiparesis in stroke. DESIGN: A meta-analysis combined the reported randomized controlled trials of FES in stroke, using the effect size method of Glass, and the der Simonian-Laird random effects method for pooling studies. SETTING: The included studies were pulished between 1978 and 1992. They were conducted in academic rehabilitation medicine settings. PATIENTS: In all included studies, patients were in poststroke rehabilitation. The mean time after stroke varied from 1.5 to 29.2 months. INTERVENTION: FES applied to a muscle or associated nerve in a hemiparetic extremity was compared to No FES. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE: Change in paretic muscle force of contraction following FES was compared to change without FES. RESULTS: For the four included studies, the mean effect size was 0.63 (95% Cl 0.29 to 0.98). This result was statistically significant (p < 0.05). CONCLUSION: Pooling from randomized trials supports FES as promoting recovery of muscle strength after stroke. This effect is statistically significant. There is a reasonable liklihood of clinical significance as well.

Full text (sometimes free) may be available at these link(s):      help

• DOI
• PubMed
• PDF locator
• publisher

A brief summary and a critical assessment of this review may be available at DARE